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How to get the most from your collaborations!!
April 21 , 2010 1
Collaboration on Collaboration
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Agenda
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• Dinner 6:00-6:20• Welcome-Project Sharing 6:20-6:30
• Making it Work Basics 6:40-6:50
• Synchronous, Real Time Meetings 6:50-7:30
• Break 7:30-7:40
• Asynchronous—as in Online 7:40-7:55
• Examples• Collaborations that work • Collaborations that are challenging
7:55-8:15
• Workshop - Enhancing our own collaborations
8:15-8:35
• Next steps for C on C 8:35-8:45
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Making collaboration work
Collaborative approaches offer an array of choices and complex trade-offs
How do you get started?
What and where do you begin?
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Benefits
Work, Effort
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Collaboration—it’s partnership
If it’s easy • To connect• Open up
People become comfortable sharing knowledge.
Frequent interaction builds community, trust and self-policing norms
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Collaboration? Good Ingredients
• Complementary Strengths• Common Mission• Reciprocity
Fairness, Trust, Acceptance, Communicating, Unselfishness, and Forgiveness.
--The Power of 2 by Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller (2009)
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Meaningful partnerships (aka collaborations) include the following factors
AND each partner felt the significance of these factors “very strongly”
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Consider your goals
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Opportunity Finding?Problem Solving?Relationship BuildingPersonal Expression
Goals • Foster Expectations• Fuel individuals’
incentives to participate.
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Objectives, objectives and objectives
OBJECTIVES
Why are you looking to collaborate? What you are trying to do? (Choice of tool and platform always
2nd) • With WHOM are you planning to collaborate? • WHAT is your objective? How focused a task?• WHEN is there an expected or anticipated deliverable? WHY are you collaborating? If there's no Trust, mutual
intersection of interests, common purpose, mission , complement of strengths…think through your proposition again.
• HOW--this is where roles and timing matter• WHERE--should obviously afford convenient access and be
compatible with users’ platforms (Mobile or desktop? Do you need voice capability, text or both?) 7
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Your turn
Tell us Who you are? What about Collaboration brought
you here tonight?
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“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” George Bernard Shaw
AND What collaboration(s) are you presently engaged in, or would like to create?
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In person collaboration
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Individual skills for collaboration
• Bilateral– Know and have
prerequisites• Have a shared
goal– Attitudes
• Value the other person’s contribution
• An interest in the other person’s success
– Skills• Listening• Communicating,
frequently, clearly, openly and concisely
• Give reasons behind your thinking
• Be patient and persistent
• Acknowledge upcoming problems
• Project management (mini)
• Teams/ multiple– Know and enforce
team basics• Have a shared
goal• A common way of
working and a commitment to check on how it’s working
• The right number of people (7-12)
– The right mix of skills
– Attitude• Value the other
people’s contributions
• An interest in the others’ success, beyond the team goal
– Skills
• Facilitating discussion
• Project management
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Key rules for successful collaboration
• Involve the relevant stakeholders
• Build consensus phase by phase
• Have a facilitator focused on the problem-solving process
• Have a process map
• Harness the power of group memory
From: How to Make Collaboration Work (by David Straus)
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Invite the relevant stakeholders
• Better solutions due to cognitive diversity
• More commitment to the results, because we were part of creating them
Diverse perspectives and expertise
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Build consensus phase by phase
Whole group has to stay focused and in the same phase of problem solving
Source: How to Make Collaboration Work, David Straus
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Have a facilitator
• Facilitator is:– A process
guide– A tool giver– A neutral third
(or nth) party– A process
educator
Source: How to Make Collaboration Work, David Straus
Photo by MikeBlogs, flickr
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Planning a detailed (but flexible) agenda
Goal Content
Process (how)
Who Timing
Get everyone focused on task at hand
What might get in my way today
What I’m looking for help with
30 secondss round of contributions
Everyone 6 mins
Understand perspectives on the problem
Facts suggesting that there is a problem
Presentation Person A 10 mins
Surface additional issues re: the problem
What else supports or refutes there is a problem
Small group discussions with structured report-out
Everyone in groups of 2-3
20 mins discussion, 20 mins report out
Agree on definition of problem
Identifying the alternative formulations
Group discussion followed by “dots style” voting
Everyone 10 mins idea generation10 mins dots voting
Facilitator may need to deviate from this !!
Example
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A sample process map for a problem-solving process
From: How to Make Collaboration Work (by David Straus)
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Good bilateral relationships make collaborations stronger
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Online collaboration
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What makes online different?
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Synchronicity NOT required. You can cast your net for collaborators widelySuccessful application of In-person Principles will yield success when adapted to the environment
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Understanding comes from exploration
Checklist of considerations to simplify tool selection, which do you need?
•Document management•Project Management•Email capabilities--tracking/sending of automatic notification•Contact management•Outlook synchronization to tasks and/or calendar, desktop and/or mobile•Online Databases•Online meeting platforms
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Today’s integrated solutions – can greatly enhance online collaboration.
Avoid issues –select your goal and then decide on your tools. Pick the functionality that best meets your sharing needs.
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Asynchronous Collaboration: Possibilities and Choices
Recombinant
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OPEN, Eco-System
Crowd Sourcing
Democratized
Relationship Building
Personal Expression
Problem-Solving
Opportunity Finding
Adapted from Amy Shuen Web2.0 Strategy Guide
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Successful online communities have people playing multiple roles.
Timing (for community or individual)
Early Middle Later
Internal Greeter
Mentor LearnerBackupPartnerProvider
CatalystPerformer SupporterAccountant
Historian
External Talent scout
CelebrityAmbassador
Fo
cus
In addition, Decision Maker acts across all times and foci
Adapted from Susan Fournier and Lara Lee,
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Community owners can use tactics that drive participation
• Talk to influentials more, others less.
• Increase the number of interactions.
• Solicit opinions – people with vested interests – create a challenge to overcome, – Create a poll, allow people to vote.
• Remove unused features. • Mention names more often. • Arrange time-specific activities. • Advertise for a volunteer helper.
Ideas quoted directly from FeverBee – by Richard Millington
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Good topics to drive participation focus on the members as people
• Ask them generically about themselves.
• Ask about likes/dislikes. • Get people to agree/re-
affirmation their beliefs. • Discuss seasonal stories.• Anxieties. • Ask for advice. • Breaking news/gossip. • Reminisce. • Aspirations.
Suggested in FeverBee by Richard Millington
Treat members like people !!!
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Some successful examples of collaborations
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Success online: SIKM Leaders Community
Stan Garfield SIKM Leaders Community launched by in July 2005, Key Objective: Knowledge sharing among KM leaders at consulting
and systems integration firms, hence the title of SIKM. Organizing Principles: • Anyone who is part of KM initiative can join.• Threaded discussion hosted on Yahoo groups, Stan serves as
founder, administrator. He coordinates the monthly topic/speaker and posts reminders for the upcoming call or any event.
• Collaboration occurs both through threaded discussion, and a scheduled monthly conference call (posted on the group calendar with dial-in info); and attempt to meet in person annually.
The benefits of being more inclusive have
been many, including a wider range of
presenters on the monthly calls,
participants in the online discussions, experiences and perspectives.
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Systems Integration and Consulting KM Leaders--SIKM
427 MembersFounded: July 2005
Total Cumulative Messages:
2269
Average. Posts/Month:2005: 32009: 49
Threaded Discussion Platform
Stan: creator,
coordinator, administrat
or, Collaborator
Shared Tools and
Resource
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SIKM –Why it works
• Long sharing of common interests has evolved to create collective user value.
• Personalities emerge over time and familiarity is created beyond the posted reference name through monthly conference calls,
• Annual face-to-face fosters community building through extended sharing and interaction.
• The industry arc allows people to reach beyond their internal organization boundaries to tap best practices, vetted resources and contacts and fosters professional development growth and reputation.
• Materials readily available for those to review at their convenience. People can stay abreast of changes in the discussion or listen to missed calls and review slides from missed presentations.
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SIKM—ongoing challenges
As with any “led” initiative, the assumption of responsibility and ongoing presence of the founder, organizer in the role of administrator places some doubt for its ongoing sustaining power if he were to step back or away.
Fresh material and presenters given the growing archive. Keep it interesting not redundant.
The actual alteration in the KM discipline and its rise and fall as a presence in corporate and consulting life…people take on different tasks unrelated to KM and fall away.
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Polymath is an online math problem solving network
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Polymath collaboration structure
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Polymath results
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SAP’s business and vision drives community efforts
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SAP sponsors multiple communities
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SAP gets strong results from simple technology
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Some collaborations with challenges
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Civic Connect is project of Civic Consulting Alliance
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CCA wanted to capitalize on its alumni and friends
• Network of alumni and friends– Consultants and
other professionals energized about the organization
– Have full-time jobs with intermittent opportunities (e.g., week between projects)
– Extremely well-connected
• Part of large offices with other professionals in Chicago
• Members of large multi-national firms
• Existing mechanisms– 5th Thursday
cocktail parties (2-4 x per year)
– E-newsletter (about 800)
– LinkedIn group (about 150)
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Solution advancing and conversation process
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The pilot had some challenges, which we are fixing
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Discussion
•Questions? •Thoughts?• Ideas?
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Online discussions challenges
Strategic Management Practices Issues Group
• Meets monthly face to face in a facilitated discussion on articles selected and posted in advance.
• Online Discussion capability added to Linked-IN to extend and promote the F2F discussions
• No conversation emerging online42
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Presenter information
• Rachel Kaberon– 847-687-8480– [email protected]
• David Friedman– 312-863-3489– [email protected]
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