How to Get There from Here

Once you understand the challenges that dot the collaborative landscape, you can map out best practices to work around them.

CLARIFY THE MUTUAL VALUE: As P&G learned the hard way with its one-sided deal that ultimately failed, collaborations won't last if both sides don't stand to gain from the relationship or see enough potential value to justify the risk. "To succeed, everyone has to be creating substantial value and gaining value out of it," says Johnson. "When you start a project, you need to think carefully about who is creating value and how that value is going to be shared. If that's clear, the relationship is typically much more stable." One partner may deservedly reap a greater portion of the benefit from a collaboration, but both sides should feel like they're getting a fair cut, and enough to make it worth their while. You've got to find the sweet spot of the deal, when each side sees significant upside potential.

In Alberta, Canada, executives at the Department of Energy, the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), and Alberta's oil and gas industry recognized the mutual value of collaborating on an initiative to build a Web-based application to manage the collection, sharing and storing of data on oil production, equipment and royalty payments. The Department of Energy needs data about the volume of oil and gas being extracted from government-owned lands to charge royalties to the producers. The EUB needs that data to ensure that industry is complying with safety and environmental regulations. And oil and gas producers need to keep track of monthly production. Although the three groups were nervous about sharing information, the clearly defined benefits all around justified the risk. And taking the time to spell out those benefits up front helped pave the way for success. Today, the Web-based Petroleum Registry of Alberta has eliminated the need for 1.5 million pages of paper reports annually. Volume and infrastructure data that the three groups need is now collected and reported in standard format, giving everyone better access to more reliable data. The process of collecting royalties has been streamlined and producers end up paying fewer penalties for having inaccurate information and fewer royalty overpayments because the volume information is more accurate.

BUILD TRUST: If the value that both sides are bringing to the table is clearly understood, trust can be easier to establish. It's essential to sort through difficult issues like what happens when a joint venture creates new IP (who owns it? who gets free access to it and who pays for it?) up front. If you postpone the tough negotiations, Weedman says, the trust will be sorely tested and the team will become dysfunctional when those unresolved issues crop up later. It's also important to the relationship to establish ground rules at the outset, including an issue resolution and sign-off process that will ensure involvement of the key stakeholders in major decisions. P&G always hammers out dispute resolution processes as part of its collaboration agreements, making sure that those responsible for settling tough disputes generally aren't the people running the project on a daily basis.

Open and honest communication is the cornerstone of trust. "The best way to build trust is to be up front about our needs and be willing to accommodate others' needs," says Weedman. "Any relationship has to be win-win in order to be successful."

PROVIDE THE RIGHT TOOLS: Schrage maintains that true collaboration simply isn't possible without the creation and maintenance of a shared space. "It takes a shared space to create shared understanding," he says. "If there's no shared space, there's no collaboration. Period." Technologies that create shared space and tools for collaboration fall into two categories: real-time and asynchronous/persistent.

Real-time technologies, such as Web conferencing and instant messaging, require collaborators to log on at the same time to, say, conduct an online meeting to review design specs or to resolve an issue by chatting through IM. Asynchronous tools, such as online collaborative workspaces and e-mail, allow collaborators to contribute on their own schedule, a particularly useful feature for managing projects that span time zones. Workspaces such as Microsoft's SharePoint, IBM/Lotus's Workplace and several industry-specific tools (including PTC's Windchill ProjectLink for the manufacturing industry, Agile for the high-tech industry and Freeboarder for the apparel industry) provide an electronic medium for collaborating, offering capabilities such as messaging, calendaring, document management and workflow automation. Users can see what their colleagues are doing, and everyone with appropriate access credentials can view - and add comments to - the latest version of a document.

Asynchronous tools also serve as a persistent, always accessible archive for discussions and document versions, keeping track of who decided what and when. This can be especially valuable for supporting sophisticated, long-term collaborations and for building trust. "In many ways, it creates trust if during any development process, you know that all information will be saved as a conversation," says Johnson. "Everyone will know how the product developed, how it changed. There's not a feeling that maybe someone did something or changed something and you didn't know."

The line between real-time and asynchronous tools is beginning to blur, however, as some collaboration tools are starting to offer both real-time and asynchronous/persistent functionality. Archiving is now possible with some IM products, for example, and Groove Networks supports real-time communications within its asynchronous, peer-to-peer workspace. IBM has added real-time functionality to its Workplace products. The presence awareness feature of IM (which indicates whether users are currently online) is also finding its way into some collaborative workspaces and meeting technologies. Convoq ASAP, for instance, initiates online meetings as soon as all are present.