Collaboration 2.x Is About Managing What Just Happened

The first wave of collaboration was about communication. The second wave will be about managing what just happened.

Team and organizational management is a changing discipline. It isn't the same as it was a few years ago. Just ask yourself, "How much of what I do each day is in a project plan?" Teams and organizations have moved into a fast-paced, dynamic, dispersed and significantly more complex era.

I'm a company owner, and a business manager. Before that, I was a project manager. Before that, I was a team manager. And before that, I just managed myself. In all that time, I've never seen managers face anything like what they are facing now.

Today's managers have it tough... and I mean real tough, especially at the highest levels. "Why?" you may ask to humor me. The truth is we already know why...

All over the world, managers are changing the way they work together with their team members. Instead of FTE's, managers are using fragments of outsourced workers scattered around the world. At the same time, their employees want to work from home. And at the same time, managers are dealing with faster-paced companies and information overload. Instead of planning everything in a nicely structured MS Project file, they're running with their pants on fire, flexing with the competitive business driver of the day.

How is technology helping? Despite all the hype about collaboration, the vast majority of managers are still doing "management by email". The biggest difference between those who "do" and those who "don't" manage by email is whether they're telling the truth. Really, how many managers make a project plan for the daily details. Even management reporting is a labor intensive manual effort these days.

Teams are more scattered too. As a result, they are scattering information about their projects all over the world. For all we know, an employee may be working with your corporate data in a McDonalds, or from a coffee shop in India, and lose their laptop in the process.

The first collaboration hype wave was all about communication. I.e. "Collaboration lets us communicate better with remote workers". The reality has arrived, and it's about how to manage it all.

Today's teams are far more complex than just a few years ago. The next wave of collaboration MUST help managers cope with what just happened.

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(Cary Landis is president of Virtual Global, Inc. and TeamHost.com)