April 18, 2001
Last month I came across a very arresting full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. The ad, for J.D. Edwards’ OneWorld®Xe software suite, was headlined “Collaborate or Die,” and it got me to thinking (again) about the huge range of people, process and technology inside (and outside) a business that are dependent on efficient and effective “knowledge management.” Interestingly, when I was with Andersen Consulting back in 1997-98 its nascent knowledge management consulting group was actually called “C&KM” – Collaboration and Knowledge Management, the point being that one of the main reasons you want to attempt to manage your knowledge is so that you can enhance your internal and external collaboration, which, of course, is essential to enhancing your ability to act! So let’s take a closer look at what business collaboration is all about. First, consider internal collaboration – between your various business and organizational units. The finance department is, of course, dependent on the collaboration of all other business units to provide the performance data – sales, cost of sales, inventory, asset values, etc. – they need to run accounts payable and receivable and to maintain an up-to-date and accurate picture of the financial health of the business. That data in turn gets compiled into information and knowledge that is essential for product development, sales & marketing, etc., to make any necessary adjustments to product features, inventory, pricing and promotions, etc. Or think about human resources; that department needs the collaboration of all other business units to maintain an accurate picture of the human resources on hand and needed, and then to recruit, integrate and develop new resources as required. Now consider external collaboration – with, and between, your partners, suppliers and customers. Increasingly in the e-economy, these external entities are more and more an integral part of all your business processes, from product development to planning and managing your enterprise. You need your partners to deliver the full range of integrated services your customers demand. You rely on your suppliers to rapidly respond to demand for changes in your product offerings. You are asking your customers to do more with regard to “self-service” ordering and servicing of your products and services. Many previously internal functions – customer service, warehousing and distribution, information technology (IT), even some finance and HR functions – are now completely outsourced to third-party providers that specialize in those functions and can do them better and cheaper than you could on your own. But to do so in a way that makes sense for you – after all, they’re still your business processes, and you are ultimately responsible for their successful contributions to you business’ bottom line – requires close, continuous collaboration among all internal and external entities involved. The point of all this is that collaboration is everywhere in today’s business world; if you’re not collaborating as much as you possibly can, you are probably in the slow, but inexorable, process of dying as a business. Interestingly enough, many of the first enterprise-wide “knowledge management” platforms, such as Lotus Notes, were actually billed as collaboration platforms, with an emphasis on communication (i.e., e-mail) as opposed to document management (i.e., collections of stuff). This was before the Net was available as the great communications tool that it has become – communications is probably the most important ingredient for successful collaboration. Then the intellectual capital and knowledge management craze began to take hold, and these same tools tried to morph to serve this new business need. Now the lines and interrelationships between the two disciplines – collaboration and knowledge management – are clearer, and a new breed of tools and services has become available to better serve both. In truth, the process(es) of knowledge management should be subordinate to the processes of collaboration, and not the other way around. Unfortunately, in most organizations the optimal processes and methods of collaboration are not very well defined, and it is left up to each individual to try to figure them out on their own. Clay Carr, in his book Smart Training, postulated that each day everyone in an organization tries to do what is required of them by seeking the answers to four “competency” questions: Collaboration is undoubtedly a key element in the answer to all four of these questions, whereas knowledge management may not be. Business managers should make every effort to ensure that everyone in their extended enterprises (including your partners, suppliers and, yes, even your customers) has the right answers to these questions at all times, and in particular that they understand the collaboration element and know how to work with others effectively and efficiently. So J.D. Edwards has it right. Today successful collaboration is critical to all business processes. KM should, in fact, be a set of processes and tools specifically tuned to support collaboration across your business; define your collaboration requirements, and your KM requirements will follow. Bottom line: If you don’t get good at collaborating – and soon – you’re dead!
Collaboration, in fact, is an excellent “end-in-mind” * to have when beginning or continuing knowledge management efforts. According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, collaborate (in a business context) can best be defined as “to work jointly with others or together, especially in an intellectual endeavor,” where the others are typically “an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.” * When talking about KM and related topics, I like to paraphrase one of Steven Covey’s famous 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind,” by saying “begin with an end in mind,” the point being that you need to start with a focus on some clear desired outcome, recognizing that as you then progress toward that outcome, things may change and you won’t necessarily wind up exactly where you were expecting to be, but you’ll be close, and then from that point you can adjust your “end-in-mind” and iterate, iterate, iterate.