IT research firm Gartner has identified five myths held by IT leaders that lead to failure of collaboration initiatives.
The five collaboration myths include: the right tools will make us collaborative; collaboration is inherently a good thing; collaborating takes extra time; people naturally will/will not collaborate; and People instinctively know how to collaborate.
Indicating these mistaken assumptions about basic issues, Gartner said IT leaders should determine which of five factors – technology, roles, process, metrics and workplace climate – to change to achieve successful collaboration projects.
Gartner vice president Carol Rozwell said rather than making technology the starting point, IT leaders should first identify real business problems and key performance indicators (KPIs) that link to business goals.
According to Gartner, technology helps in collaboration if the companies select the right kind of tools with addressing roles, processes, metrics and the organisation’s workplace climate.
The research firm also indicated that companies need to employ the right social media initiatives solve real business problems.
However, it cautioned that if collaboration and social software tools are not integrated with other critical applications, workers must shift context – which slows them down – or duplicate effort.
IT leaders should ignore the reluctant minority and work on motivating the majority of workers who can be persuaded to collaborate when expectations are clear and collaborative behaviors are rewarded, Gartner said.
It suggested that a better approach is to clarify the right attitude, abilities and skills, and personal style a collaborative individual needs to bring to their work, which fits well in a team setting.
"IT leaders need to look for situations to apply collaborative approaches that give the organization not just a competitive advantage but competitive differentiation," said Rozwell.
"The most successful collaboration initiatives solve real business problems, aiming to affect a KPI that links to an organization’s business goals."
