"Why in-house collaboration is so difficult" is the title of a really interesting piece by Andrew Campbell, originally published in the UK Financial Times in 2006.Andrew looks at various standard reasons for the failure of collaboration, such as Not-Invented-Here, or "new skills in old structures", and instead, based on his own research, that there are several common reasons why Collaboration fails.
- Synergies may be a mirage
- Collaboration between departments may confuse the departments' primary purpose
- Big investments may be needed before synergies are delivered, and the investment may outweigh the value delivered. Opportunity costs are too great.
- There may be no mechanism to decide which practices are "best"
- There may be buried rivalries
- There may be incompatable IT systems
Andrew's recommendation, which echoes the warnings of Morten Hansen, is simple.
- Get very clear on the size of the prize
- Find out why collaboration is not happening (an Assessment or culture audit will help here)
- Determine whether you have the skill to unblock the problems
- Calculate the cost of collaboration (resources, time, distraction, loss of accountability etc).
Like anything else in Knowledge Management, collaboration is not an end in itself - it is only a mechanism to add value.
Work out the value proposition, and maybe in-house collaboration will not be so difficult after all.
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