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Yesterday I posted on a team-based community using the space for the purpose of communicating to several groups.

NOTE: I left a comment on that post that an ideal space for teams to work is not one designed for learning and sharing (CoPs), but rather one designed for tasks. Although they use the same tools (blogs, wikis, forums), the task spaces are more designed to how humans do tasks. A great example is Traction’s case study on the ShoreBank. But since we don’t have a team/task 2.0 type tool our teams are making the best of our community tools.

In this community it was decided to use a blog, rather than several email lists; now all discussion is inclusive and people can visit the blog at anytime, rather then looking for that last email “about that thing I was supposed to do, or did I delete that email.”

I mentioned that the authors in the main communications blog were the people in the first two levels of the hierarchy. This makes it mostly a one party communication tool, besides the other parties being able to comment.

But that insightful comment may be too late, as the decision has already been made and now being communicated.

What I think is important is more transparency (more “good to know”, than “need to know”), which in this example can happen two ways:

1. I mentioned that the authors of the main communications blog will also have an admin blog

• I’m not yet sure if this has reasons to be private, but if not, it could be open, so the other groups can listen in on what’s being talked about
• In the end what’s being talked about will eventually become a decision and be communicated to them
• In the end these decisions decided by people higher in the hierarchy will effect the way they work
• People higher in the hierarchy don’t always know about contexts and how work is actually practiced at ground zero
• So sometimes some of their decisions may be impractical or simply be better or more appropriate or useful, had the people who are impacted, had some input into the issue/task

2. I mentioned that all parties will be able to author in the main forum

• The higher ranked teams can use this forum to crowdsource for input on an issue they are working on
• This is a simple way to get impacted parties involved…decisions communicated by higher parties will be more relevant or practical as they have had dialogue
• This forum can also be used to crowdsource ideas in general, where insight that the higher parties never thought of can become part of strategy.
• It’s also a space where the impacted parties can ask questions

Transparency is such a key factor to a more effective workplace…decisions become more relevant as other groups are able to listen in and intervene or make suggestions before a decision is made.
We can easily see this saves time and money, is a more cooperative approach as related groups are more aware of future impacts (and can prepare or align), and promotes a more cohesive workplace.

Or we can look at the negative perspective; sometimes a decision is made in private, and the decision cannot be reversed, that is, it’s too late.

eg. parties high in the hierarchy buy some software, that is antiquated or not as useful as some cutting edge software…it’s tool late, the money has been spent

Had they been transparent and even crowdsourced some opinion, they would be amazed by the contexts and scenarios people would bring up that would actually make it easy to choose a product as there would be more relevant criteria.
They would also be surprised, that people may know a lot about this type of product, and suggest some more cutting edge choices.

This post has not been about the lack of ultimate communication, it’s about lack of transparency that goes into the path leading up to the eventual communication, and how that communication could be more relevant, and the gossip that seeps.

And from the workers point-of-view; the more included they are, the more they feel a part ownership of decisions, the more satisfied that they can have input into the way they work.
Often there is so much frustration, as in the end it may impact your work routines, and who knows best about ground zero, “you”. So being included somehow, or an opportunity to express your thoughts makes for a more happy and comfortable team, as well as more relevant decisions. Usually it’s the opposite, you hear rumors, or know of talks happening, but you feel so excluded…especially when someone at your level somehow knows more than you.

We know it’s not always going to be the case where others can listen in on some conversations, but it should be default “good to know”, and only be “need to know” when required.

Am I missing anything here?

Any thoughts on how transparency impacts on power, and people in the hierarchy that may feel threatened, disintermediated or usurped by the collective?

This is a follow up from my post, Team-based communities.

In that post I briefly described the dynamics in Teams using CoPs; basically same dynamics (just different space), the obstacles in participation, and how the lead is to be a role model for adoption and facilitation of the CoP.

This post is more of a prequel to my past post on team-based CoPs, as I want to share some of the questions I’m now beginning to ask Team leads who want to set up a CoP space for their team.

But first here are some general questions I ask any type of new community.

Broad questions to consider for new communities (both team and shared interest)

When requesting a community there are a few things to be considered prior to set up:

• Is the community about shared learning, or to help a team coordinate and communicate?
• Is the community a public face for the rest of the firm to be aware and interact with that team?
• Will the community content be for a private or public audience?
• Will the community content be contributed by members only, and be visible to read by non-
  members?
• Who will be leading, and running the community?
• What are the existing community indicators? Eg. Email groups, telecon groups
• Will your community be used more if it’s regional or topic based?

Key questions for team-based communities

• Do you have a communication, coordination, and awareness issue, both within your team and with the organisation at large?
• Do you want to really do something about it by dedicating time and passion to changing behaviours?
• Are you prepared to change routines, facilitate, and role model this effort?
• In the end our communities tools are a catalyst or an excuse to improve team dynamics, productivity, and a new way of working.

What we are used to hearing about in CoPs are: learning, sharing, social productivity, ask a question…

This too can happen in Team-based CoPs, but a good idea is to focus on solving a problem, coordinating an issue, communicating a message, which is what teams do.

It’s not about social computing (hopefully these tools will soon become boring), it’s deeper than this, it’s about a better way of working eg. using blogs and wikis in a CoP space to coordinate and communicate a task rather than scattered emails and attachments.

I’m finding that when I now workshop with teams I’m not just the web 2.0 guy, I’m feeling more like a change consultant in the way of getting deep into the existing information flows, and offering new ways to do it more effective.

Communication example

I did a workshop with some team leads the other day asking the above questions.

It turned out the team lead wanted to use the CoP to communicate a message down the hierarchy.

This was a good start, as I knew what they wanted to achieve.

Next I asked what typical email distribution emails she sends out.

She listed all the groups on the whiteboard.

Then I asked what is the frequency of emails you send to all these groups.

Once we had a visual of this we could identify what tools and how many of them we were going to use.

Most of her communication emails needed to go 4 levels deep in the hierarchy.
Her second most frequent type of communication is only 2 levels deep.

The answer was two blogs.

One is a more admin blog, and the other to reach ground zero.

We also worked out that people up to 2 levels directly below her could also author in the ground zero blog (so to speak), as well as the admin blog

This CoP will also have a forum for any of the sub-team groups to use.

Coordination example

This next example actually isn’t a team, but is still about solving a coordination issue that happens across teams (This CoP is made up of leads from different teams.)

We have several applications under the one suite and every month a coordination person that represents all these teams to the rest of the business, emails each of the 6 or 7 application leads to email her their monthly release document.

She then compiles them into one big monthly release document, and then emails the company.

Throughout this process she often gets requests for the latest before she sends out her broadcast email.

She also may get subsequent emails from each application lead to add bits that they forgot to include in their original email to her.

During this process she may be emailing back and forth with each lead to clarify.

Also during this process each lead doesn’t know the conversations she’s having with the other leads.

This is what I suggested:

• the coordination person to use an admin blog to post an announcement to the leads to prepare their monthly release note
• leads get an email as they are subscribed to the blog
• at any stage they can reply to this email, which will leave a comment on that blog post (this is cross awareness and common discussion)
• this blog post has a link to a wikipage for that month
• the leads go to their respective wikipage and enter their notes
• each lead or anyone else can visit the wiki at any time…maybe??…as long as they know it’s not official as of yet
  (or they can ask a question in the forum representing that application)
• each lead can keep updating it at any time up to the deadline
  (then the coordinator can lock off those wikipages even to those leads…she can perhaps continue to make PDF versions as well)
• she may then use another blog, or email to announce to the company at large

Intended result:

• This process involves no original emails
• The coordinator is no longer a bottleneck
• The wiki process also becomes the end product
• The coordinator is still coordinating the process, but it’s simply more streamlined and actually less work for her
• All conversations are documented in the open, so more people can be aware, and quick to act
• The release wiki can seem like a database compared to a heap of folders for each month each containing PDF’s
  (getting away from the filing cabinet, and moving to a more friendly interface)

[ADDED 10/03/09: Team-based communities : Transparency and Crowdsourcing for a more cohesive workplace]