Douglas I. Kalish

Collaboration Strategies and Organizational Design

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Collaboration EcoSystem Plan Results
 



Problem: A large partnership had dozens of uncoordinated and redundant knowledge and information management projects.

  

How could they get these projects under control?




A Collaboration EcoSystem Plan

began with an inventory of all

knowledge and collaboration projects -

unearthing some that had remained

hidden for years.  The CEP proposed

to senior management a collaboration

and knowledge management strategy

including governance, job descriptions

of key personnel and timeline of

initiatives, paving the way for a

corporate-wide collaboration

implementation.


 

Problem: The professional services arm of a multinational software firm was growing quickly and threw new hires into client work with minimal training, resulting in embarrassing client site failures and plummeting employee morale. 


How could they make sure that every consultant had the tools and knowledge to perform exceptionally?



A Collaboration EcoSystem Plan produced an

inventory of existing training and resources

and identified others that needed to be

developed.  The result was a fifteen module

self-driven induction program for new hires,

decreasing ‘time to billability’, and increasing

quality and new hire productivity.


 



Problem:  Vendor selection for the document management system of a large global partnership became mired in politics, favoritism and dubious technology claims. 


How to make sure that the selected product really met the needs of the firm?





A Collaboration EcoSystem Plan defined user

requirements, technical architecture constraints

and vendor selection  criteria with an objective

scoring matrix resulting in a globally integrated

content management system serving as a

central, searchable knowledgebase.


 


Problem: One partner at a small partnership proposed an expensive technology solution to address the lack of collaboration at the firm. 


Would the technology really solve the problem?


Following a Collaboration EcoSystem Plan,

the partners decided that the lack of

collaboration was endemic to the structure

and culture of the firm and not likely to be

solved with technology.  They elected to

defer implementation of the collaboration

initiative because of a lack of consensus

over needs, technology, and cost allocation,

saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in

direct and indirect costs.  They instead

began a series of low-cost behavioral

changes to increase the level of collaboration.


Copyright 2009-2011, Douglas Kalish.  All rights reserved.

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