Enterprise Collaboration
April 18, 2006

Focus: This Interchange focused on identifying effective methods for collaborating with others inside and outside the organization.

What Is Collaboration?
- Two or more working together to create something that is of mutual benefit and has
some value to everyone involved.
- Internal communication
- Field vs. Headquarters
- Ability to work together and work toward a shared goal
- Communication between the project members to accomplish a goal
- Sharing information and how do you make that information useable

How Do You Gain “Buy In” From Team and People in the Field?
- Find out who the REAL leader of the team is and get him/her on board so they can use their influence in the positive direction. This will gain confidence among the team members.
-Culture change is very important and needs to be addressed.
-Have compensation plans support and encourage collaboration. Management groups must be active in bringing this communication together.
-Face to face communication works best. This helps to see how they are reacting to what is being said.
-Building communication plans and addressing the fears of the employees to make them feel comfortable about the culture change, and allow it to work for them and not against them.
-Appeal to “What’s in it for me”.
-When resistance is encountered, usually they are uncomfortable or scared.
-Have planning meetings for IT to get them involved, and help them to understand the needs of other departments.
-HR needs to be apart of the collaboration process. They need to understand the business process and know the role of each area.
-“Shareholder value” is VERY important.

Inter Tower:
-Monthly operations review meetings: how is everyone on the same page but have different criteria for what is important. Getting this mastered is key so that everyone is on the same page, and criteria are the same across the board. This will keep people from having different and contrasting results and measurements.
-Have meetings to explain and address how a tool and the transition are going to affect the individuals who will use it.
-Never allow the word “CAN’T” to be used. Use how can we get this done.
-Communicating to your users is key.
-Show the field what is in it for them.
-Use what leverage you can on each group and treat them as individuals.
-Cross pollination of tools so that everyone has experience with all of them.
-It has to be a change in the fabric of business not just the change of processes.

Role Model of Motivators:
-Considering people’s ideas and thoughts and providing feedback. two-way communication.
-A simply thank you and show of appreciation.
-Allowing them to be apart of the decision making process.
-Having them feel as though they have contributed to the company.
-What is most important to you in your company? This will help determine individual motivators for different people.

Benefits/Comments:
Open forum/Valuable viewpoints – Sharing of best practices
Experts/Valuable viewpoints
Topic/Very core to my current position
Peer interaction/Learn what is critical to others
Transitions/Currently going through one
Motivating/Always valuable
Evaluating culture/Dealing with multiple cultures
Aligning HR with IT/Approach issues differently
Business value/Have business side understand how collaboration will effect bottom line