Project Management

Collaboration: Let Me Count the Ways...

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

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Back in the day, when people collaborated they worked shoulder to shoulder and became immersed in the dynamics of creativity, emotion and interpersonal experiences. Today, with the advent of globalization, distributed work teams and reduced travel spending, collaboration is almost always framed in terms of the Internet and a vast array of tools. While certainly needed, I often wonder if Web-based collaboration yields the same innovation and creative breakthroughs that come from the old-fashioned kind.
Having collaborated on the development of the world’s largest antique sword collector’s Web portal without ever meeting my collaboration partner face-to-face or even voice-to-voice, I know from experience that remote collaboration works--at least when the group is very small and the rolls very specific. I also know that for larger groups, face-to-face collaboration can yield amazing results in very little time, especially when they are structured and focused on achieving well-defined objectives. Kaizen, RAD, JAD and Helix are examples of collaboration approaches that have a proven track record of accomplishing amazing results for relatively low cost and in short time frames.
No matter what form your collaborations take, it is important to understand the basics about this mode of communication, creativity and problem solving. So let’s begin by setting forth …

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