We only got as far last time as Fact-Finding, so four of the five stages of facilitated collaboration still need to be addressed. As a reminder, the five stages are Fact-Finding, Proposals and Options, Decisions, Action, and Evaluation, and we’ll use the gas pipeline example from last time to ground the discussion.
Last time, I looked at the essential stages of collaboration, and I promised to fill things out with an example. I found one in my hometown newspaper with a front-page story about a natural gas pipeline proposal. Unsurprisingly, there are concerns about the business needs and jobs on the one side and the environment, property values, and health issues on the other.
Collaboration has taken on more complexity and intensity in recent years thanks to advances in technology and globalization. Instead of having face-to-face, short-sleeved teams surrounding a worktable talking through plan, the collaborators may come together virtually from several different countries and need to deal with a variety of languages, cultures, and time zones. They may have never met face-to-face, might be employed by different organizations, and may drop in and out of projects, depending upon the demands for their skills. It’s more likely nowadays that they will deal with complexity, in terms of data available, skills required, conflicting needs of stakeholders, and the regulations.
Can technology help us to work more effectively together? Certainly, it has had a major impact in enabling the exchange of messages, images, and data (through basic communications). And recent years have seen the problems of virtual teaming reduced by improving sequencing (e.g., through shared calendars) and providing richer environments (e.g., moving from email and phone conversations to shared virtual worlds and videoconferencing).
