Finding value in collaboration shouldn't be too hard

James Robertson who writes the excellent Column Two blog [1] writes this week that we need to find business value in collaboration. Since collaboration is almost always a desirable behavior in an organization, it shouldn't be too hard to find value in tools that help foster that kind of activity. Yet Robertson suggests that if a company really wants to squeeze the most out of these tools, he recommends hiring at least one or two managers to manage the collaboration process.

This would seem to defeat the purpose of creating tools that simplify the collaboration process. Sure, you need management looking at the big picture to make sure these tools are working as advertised and that employees are getting the most out of them, are fully trained and that there are governance procedures in place (among other tasks he mentions).

But shouldn't the management in place be sufficient to handle that? Is it really necessary to bring in a whole new layer of management to deal with each piece of technology or technology issue that comes up? In certain cases, it pays to have a dedicated person in place such as a compliance officer or a security officer, but collaboration is part of what we do every day at our jobs. The same middle manager dealing with running your department should be able to deal with the problems and issues that are offshoots of this natural social activity. It shouldn't require extra people, even in a large organization simply because we have created software tools to support this process.

For more information, see:
Robertson's blog post [2]

Related Articles:
A battle looms over collaboration tools says Forrester analyst [3]
Open source tries to make collaboration the differentiator [4]
Intranets and collaboration are two sides of the same coin [5]