Overview
Collaborative solutions development capabilities (CSDC) operate in the context of existing organizations that have structures, cultures, management styles and member attitudes. These organizational factors influence how well CSDC can be increased and distributed in an organization. There are many such factors; this page reviews several major ones.
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| The first three organizational factors are inter-related orientations. |
"Development"
versus
"Operations"
Orientation
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Some organizations operate in industries or sectors where it is expected that they will need to change operations frequently. These organizations tend to be more development oriented.
Other organizations operate in environments where change comes less often. These organizations tend to be more operations oriented.
Development-oriented companies and their management teams are likely to give more attention to increasing collaborative solutions development capability.
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"Teamwork" versus
"Command and Control" Orientation |
Organizations that encourage collaboration and teamwork will have a better basis for developing increased CSDC compared to organizations that have more of a hierarchical, command-and-control orientation. With broader collaboration,
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more knowledge is included as input for process development |
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more mental modeling capability and points of view are available for creating and validating the work products that are produced by process development, and |
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less training, readiness and "buy-in" work is required to get the process change in place |
In team-oriented environments, CSDC will therefore be easier to increase and will show results more quickly.
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"Network" versus "Silo"
Orientation |
Some organizations conduct functions freely across departmental boundaries, as a network.
Other organizations conduct activities more within departmental boundaries, sometimes referred to as "silos".
Network oriented organizations may be more process-oriented and collaborative than silo-oriented organizations, and thus more likely to value, use and work to increase CSDC.
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Resistance to
Change |
In some organizations members are more receptive to change because expectations and implementations are well-managed and produce successful results.
In other organizations members have developed resistance to change through prior failures, lack of communications, or resources shortages that make it difficult and stressful to make the change happen and still get existing assignments accomplished.
The level of resistance to change in an organization will influence how quickly and widely increased CSDC can be distributed within an organization. If change is resisted, then CSDC will have difficulty producing results, and so the value of increasing CSDC will not be experienced. If change is accepted, CSDC will produce value more easily and will be credited for doing so.
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| Executive Support |
This is a standard resource for all organization change initiatives. Organizations in which executive management takes an active interest in productivity gains and competitiveness will have better chances of increasing CSDC.
Executive attitudes toward the organizational "orientations" above will also strongly determine how quickly CSDC can be increased in an organization.
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| Challenges and Opportunities |
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"Operations / Command and Control / Silo" Orientation
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Challenge: Organizations that lean toward operations, command and control and/or silo orientations are likely to operate in industry areas where there are fewer drivers for change. In these areas, the competitive "par" does not require a great deal of process development, collaborative or otherwise. So such organizations are likely to give less attention to collaborative solutions development capability.
Opportunity: Such organizations have the most to gain from increasing and using collaborative solutions development capability, in terms of greater utilization of organizational resources. Also, by increasing CSDC, organizations in these areas may be able to gain a significant competitive advantage over their competitors who don't.
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"Development / Network / Teamwork" Orientation versus
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Challenge: Organizations that lean toward development, team-based and network orientations are likely to operate in fast-moving industry areas. They may already utilize collaborative solutions development, take it for granted, and so not emphasize further development of CSDC.
Opportunity: By focusing on the core capabilities of collaborative solutions development, organizations with these orientations can increase the strength of CSDC in specific functions and expand the distribution of CSDC to general business activities, giving them an additional competitive edge.
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Overcoming Resistance to Change
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Challenge: One of the key approaches to overcoming resistance to change, particularly among middle-managers and key contributors, is to demonstrate beneficial change results. The catch is that there will be resistance to producing these results.
Opportunity: Increasing collaborative solutions development capability can be accomplished in small increments. The resulting increases in CSDC can be applied to small process changes over wide areas of organizational activity, providing many small demonstrations of successful change.
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Gaining Executive Support
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Challenge: Collaborative solutions development capability is not a widely-recognized, highly differentiated skill. The results of using CSDC may be many incremental improvements that do not particularly stand out. CSDC operates from a highly leveraged position relative to operational action. Because of these factors, executive management may not prioritize collaborative solutions development capability as a strategic competitive competency.
Opportunity: There are many sources of CSDC, many ways to increase it, and many ways to apply it. Very few organizations today make extensive use of collaborative solutions development, so there are often many opportunities to use CSDC to create significant improvements in organizational performance.
Because of this potential, it is possible to set up and operate a program purpose creating a "virtuous cycle" of:
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creating significant improvement results from the use of increased CSDC |
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highlighting these results for executive management notice |
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securing executive support for increasing CSDC |
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creating still more improvement results, highlighting them, securing more support, and so on. |
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Rate your organization on its relative position in the following areas:
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"More" in terms of being development/teamwork/network oriented versus operations/command-and-control/silo oriented
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If you rated your organization more toward operations/command-and-control/silo oriented in the question above, assess your organization in terms of:
Number of recognized requirements for process change that are difficult to address due to the current organizational orientation.
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If you rated your organization more toward development/teamwork/network oriented in the question above, rate your organization in terms of:
Number of areas in which CSDC can be extended to more general business activities and/or less specialized roles.
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Relative number of visible opportunities for successful small-scale process changes that can contribute to overcoming general resistance to change
Relative number of organizational initiatives that are high priorities for executive management that might benefit from increased collaborative solutions development.
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