An interesting definition of collaboration comes from the the very first
pages of "Managing Collective Intelligence" by Olivier Zara, published in 2004.
I reccomend who is
interested in go in deep about collaboration to read this book, free availble
in PDF. Here below the definition:
In the intelligent
enterprise, it is important to distinguish between collective reflection and
collective communication:
- Communication
allows for an exchange of information, without there necessarily being any
intellectual collaboration.
- Reflection implies
intellectual cooperation through which information is created, becomes
meaningful, and is applied to existing information, transforming it
into new information.
This distinction is
important because people often think they are cooperating when in actual fact
they are merely communicating. Just about everyone sends and receives
information; few are those who engage in the more difficult act of
co-constructing it.
I have also collected some other definition of collaboration:
this from Wikipedia:
Collaboration is a recursive process
where two or more people or
organizations work together in an intersection of common
goals , by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.
[… ] teams
that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and
reward
when facing
competition for finite resources
from other
authors:
•“a process
through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively
explore their differences and search for solutions
that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible” – B.Gray, Collaborating:
Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems,
1989
•“It is a
mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties who work toward
commong goals by
sharing responsibility, authority and accountability for achieving results” –
D.Chrislip, C.Larson, Collaborative
Leadership,
1994
When you consider a team and the projects assigned
to them, one thing is clear: you cannot avoid to collaborate: it is mandatory
for the success of the team.
Results from a single serves to other people to
accomplish their targets. In this sense a series of facilities must be provided
to team's people to make easiest the collaboration.
Some of them are the classical ones: phone, e-mail,
information broadcasting.
Others are not entered in the common practices and
requires some extra effort. A forum could be very useful to track discussions, a
blog can teach new aspect of a project or the progress of an activity, etc.
Despite the himperious advent of social network,
outside the border of the company, what is usually called as Enterprise
2.0 is not yet perceived as an opportunity to increase productivity
and their own business potential.
The challenge of my job is to make these tools easier
to use and part of the usual suite of eache collegue that works in a
collaborative way
