Tamara Schenk, Research Director
“Collaboration” is a term that is often used but rarely defined. It means different things to different people. For some, it just means working together. Others think collaboration is an IT tool, and others think it refers to everybody discussing everything with everybody on the team. That’s not collaboration.
Collaboration is not important for its own sake. The purpose of collaboration is achieving better results, ideally in a shorter amount of time.
It is necessary to point this out, because if we could achieve the best results in the shortest amount of time by working alone, why would we ever collaborate with other teams, other roles or even partners? Let’s define collaboration specifically: why to collaborate (goals to be achieved), and how to collaborate (roles, teams, principles), and in which areas to achieve these goals. As an example, collaboration in a strategic account environment to drive 20% in revenue growth is different from collaboration within an enablement function to provide integrated content and training services, or collaboration in product development to develop a product innovation. The goals will always be different, and the roles and teams that are required to collaborate will be as different as the necessary collaboration process. Imagine the collaboration framework for a new product launch, the collaboration framework for creating a new value messaging playbook, or the framework required for account management to achieve 20% revenue growth in a strategic account. Collaboration frameworks, especially those in enablement, have to be tailored to the specific scope and challenges in a certain organization, always based on an enablement production process.
“Collaboration” is a term that is often used but rarely defined. It means different things to different people. For some, it just means working together. Others think collaboration is an IT tool, and others think it refers to everybody discussing everything with everybody on the team. That’s not collaboration.
Collaboration is not important for its own sake. The purpose of collaboration is achieving better results, ideally in a shorter amount of time.
It is necessary to point this out, because if we could achieve the best results in the shortest amount of time by working alone, why would we ever collaborate with other teams, other roles or even partners? Let’s define collaboration specifically: why to collaborate (goals to be achieved), and how to collaborate (roles, teams, principles), and in which areas to achieve these goals. As an example, collaboration in a strategic account environment to drive 20% in revenue growth is different from collaboration within an enablement function to provide integrated content and training services, or collaboration in product development to develop a product innovation. The goals will always be different, and the roles and teams that are required to collaborate will be as different as the necessary collaboration process. Imagine the collaboration framework for a new product launch, the collaboration framework for creating a new value messaging playbook, or the framework required for account management to achieve 20% revenue growth in a strategic account. Collaboration frameworks, especially those in enablement, have to be tailored to the specific scope and challenges in a certain organization, always based on an enablement production process.
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