We all
talk about collaboration, but do we all mean the same thing?
Wikipedia
defines collaboration as:
A recursive process where two
or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common
goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor
that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building
consensus.
That
sounds good in theory, but in practice collaboration takes many forms. In the
workplace collaboration covers a wide range of behaviors and participation. Examples of the positive boundaries of
collaborative work range from:
Everyone in one place, working together to meet a goal;
Various levels of presence (physical, virtual, not real time) displayed
by team members again striving to meet a goal;
Everyone not real time (additive, build-on type collaborations, i.e.
open source code development) but still working together to meet a goal.
Then there
are the negative boundaries:
One person (or a few) doing the work to meet a group goal;
One person directing a group to meet a goal (often described as
"one way collaboration");
Teams not working together and not meeting a goal (often setting all
involved back instead of any foreword advances).
What do
you visualize when you hear the word?