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To increase collaborative solutions development capability it is helpful to understand its origins and patterns of use. This section describes:
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Sources of Core Capabilities
The core capabilities in CSDC, summarized as skills in process analysis, design, communication and consensus-building, have several major sources, including:
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| Native Ability |
In its simplest form, collaborative solutions development capability is the "built-in" ability that people have to work together to solve problems, create plans, make decisions and so on. This in turn is based on people's natural abilities to learn, model and communicate about co-operative activities.
There is a wide range of levels of this capability among people. Strong collaborative solutions development skills are a competitive advantage for individuals as well as organizations, and tend to be well-compensated in the job market. Individuals with strong natural collaborative solutions development capabilities are to likely to gravitate toward roles in which they can use these capabilities and be rewarded for do so.
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"On the job" training in
process-oriented roles |
Another major source of CSDC is work experience in roles that require the use of these capabilities. People working with specific applications, disciplines and functions (described on the "Scope of Use" page) may choose those roles because of their native abilities, and they then increase their abilities by practicing them and augmenting them with supporting techniques.
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Formal training in process development
and collaboration |
A third major source of CSDC is formal training in these capabilities. As with "on to job" training in CSDC, this training is likely to be made available to and directed toward people in the specific roles mentioned above, and may have prerequisites that make this training less accessible to people without prior specialization.
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| General management |
Management is a particular case of a "special function" that requires the use of stronger CSDC,and that selects for these capabilities. People in management roles also typically receive training that is likely to make them more "process aware", as well as training in collaboration techniques.
However, the combination of these types of training will not necessarily add up to focused training in collaborative solutions development.
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Distribution of Core Capabilities
The distribution of CSDC within an organization often falls into a pattern that is based on the sources of CSDC. As described above, people with relatively strong CSDC will tend to move into specialized functions where they receive both on-the-job training and formal training that increases their capabilities.
Organization-wide improvement programs sometimes provide broader training in incremental process improvement. However, such programs may not focus on process redesign and creation, may be difficult to sustain, and the capabilities gained in them may fade if they are not regularly exercised.
The net of these two distribution factors is that individuals not associated with special organization functions may receive little or no training in CSDC, either on-the-job or formal.
Management roles generally require higher levels of CSDC. However, there are different areas of focus and orientations among managers, that make greater or lesser use of CSDC. These focuses within management range from steady state oversight through incremental improvement to process reengineering.
In a pyramid distribution of the relative number of people with these types of focus in management:
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point of the pyramid will be occupied by the process reengineering managers; |
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incremental improvement-oriented managers will be found in the middle; |
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the base of the pyramid will be made up of the "steady state oversight" managers. |
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This could also describe the distribution of work within individual manager's jobs.
Information Technologies departments typically have the greatest concentration of process development capabilities in an organization. However, as described in this site's page on Business / IT alignment, the people that have process development skills may not have partcularly strong collaboration skills.
The net of this is that there is considerable potential to increase effective levels of collaborative solutions development capability within an organization, through
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roll-out programs, on-the-job use, and formal training |
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more distributed use of existing capabilities. |
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| Challenges and Opportunities |
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Distribution of CSDC from Specialized Areas
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Challenge: People in these specialized functions focus on their areas of responsibility, so that their collaborative solutions development capabilities are not generally available throughout the organization.
Opportunity: These specialized functions often represent an untapped source of CSDC that can be used more broadly throughout the organization. If your competitors are not doing this, this represents an opportunity for competitive advantage.
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Recognition and Reward for CSDC
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Challenge: The individuals with strong CSDC tend to become so valuable that they are sought after in the job market, and change jobs relatively often, taking with them their knowledge, skills and potential to contribute CSDC more broadly.
Opportunity: CSDC is often not recognized as an especially valuable capability, and may not be rewarded accordingly. A program to recognize and reward CSDC could increase retention of these valuable contributors and attract individuals from competitors as well.
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General Training in CSDC
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Challenge: People with relatively strong aptitudes for CSDC may not receive any training in collaborative solutions development because they are not in specialized roles that use these capabilities extensively.
Opportunity: These people are an under-utilized resource that could be stronger contributors to incremental improvement, team-building and management support, given modest amounts of training in CSDC.
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Simplified Procedures for CSDC
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Challenge: The best way to increase collaborative solutions development capability is to reduce it to a set of reproducible procedures that can be used by people who do not have particularly high aptitudes, specialization and/or training in CSDC. However, few such tools of this type have been developed.
Opportunity: Find, acquire, build and/or adapt such tools for use in your organization
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Rate your organization on its relative position in the following areas:
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Leverage the use of CSDC skills that originate in specialized functions more broadly throughout the organization.
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Recognize and reward collaborative solutions development capabilities.
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Provide general training in CSDC for a broad range of organization members.
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Acquire and use methods that simplify and thereby increase
the use of CSDC
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