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Collaboration: The Secret Ingredient? Peter Gumpert Consider the problem of organizing and integrating the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), composed of segments of 22 organizations. How will these groups work together to solve the many fundamental problems and challenges the department will face in an exceptionally complex and rapidly changing environment? Interoperable information technology systems can help, but they cannot do the entire job. The secret ingredient for successful enterprise modernization is collaboration among people and groups. Collaboration extends well beyond coordinated effort or information exchange. It is a complex problem-solving process in which people strive toward one or more common goals, seek to understand each others' perspectives, and share ideas that stimulate the thinking of the others. Collaboration has many advantages over insular thinking and unilateral action. It often generates discovery and learning, prevents costly errors, and stimulates creative and durable solutions to difficult problems. The improved use of information in a collaborative environment yields better decision-making, better implementation of those decisions, and better monitoring of the consequences. The topic of collaboration has resulted in many books and articles over the past 10 years. MITRE has studied it, too. To address the issue of how to foster collaboration in an organization, MITRE's Center for Enterprise Modernization (CEM) has worked on the concept internally and externally. For example, it developed a matrixed structure for CEM that facilitates knowledge sharing and integration throughout the organization. This has been working effectively since CEM was founded in 1998. We've also worked with agencies to create cross-functional and cross-project teams at several organizational levels. For example, we worked with Bureau of Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) chief information officer to start an interorganizational Collaborative Round Table at the executive level. The group, which has members from Customs, contractors, and MITRE, explores emerging issues, identifies potential problems, and proposes solutions to decision-makers. Even those members who were initially skeptical have come to value the group, and some plan additional Round Tables to generate collaborative work at other levels of the modernization partnership. CEM also established the Government Enterprise Modernization Council, in which leaders from the Internal Revenue Service, CBP, and the Coast Guard share best practices and experiences. To assist the DHS in building a cohesive organization from its many component agencies, CEM suggested creating a small Office of Interagency Collaboration in each agency, charged with fostering intra- and inter-agency collaboration in areas of recognized interdependence. Where possible, we help sponsors create and maintain creative collaboration to meet their goals. Kinds of Collaboration Collaboration can take place in different ways and at different levels of intensity. In distributed collaboration, participants with similar interests exchange information on a voluntary and informal basis. They explore thoughts and opinions with one another in conversations that may lead to new insights. When exchanges become heated or intense, new groups may be formed to address the issues in greater depth. This is a common characteristic of scientific "communities of thought." In complementary collaboration, participants with complementary knowledge and/or expertise negotiate goals and strive for a common vision. Collaborators appreciate each other. After accomplishing jointly negotiated tasks, the collaborators take with them the ideas of others and incorporate them into their own thinking and approaches. To engage in integrative collaboration, participants require a prolonged period of committed activity. The collaboration thrives on dialogue, risk-taking, and a shared, evolving vision of the future. What are some of the organizational conditions that make collaboration more likely? Organizations in which members are able to collaborate have certain things in common:
The Fear Factor Why are agencies and organizations reluctant to collaborate? Often, people don't understand the nature of collaboration or how to create the conditions that support it. Many people are uncomfortable with innovation and change and are reluctant to take the risk of doing things differently. Sometimes, competition for limited funding and other resources makes rivals of groups that could be cooperating and fosters a perception that withholding information, cooperation, or resources is a source of power. For many people, their day-to-day tasks feel like quite enough work. Taking the time necessary for starting and maintaining collaborative activity feels like a waste of valuable time and effort that could be used for "real" work, and more meetings to attend may seem like torture. In some cases, security concerns and regulations or conflicts of interest between organizations (such as a government agency and its contractor) set limits on the degree to which their members are free to communicate honestly and openly and work closely with members of another group. And often the executives of organizations agree to a partnership, and even set joint goals and establish collaborative roles, but their organizations do not act accordingly. It is common even in agencies that hope to work together to see that no one is really held accountable for successful collaborative activity—so it simply doesn't get done, or is so low in priority that it is honored in name only. MITRE works with organizations to manage every element of an enterprise modernization program—including the relationships among the people who will be involved in the change process. |
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| For more information, please contact Peter Gumpert using the employee directory. Page last updated: November 12, 2003 | Top of page |
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