Deadlines and Specific Goals: Essential Components of Effective Collaboration

Effective collaboration in the public sector isn’t simply about making notes on a PDF. It’s about working towards a specific goal in a focused and timely manner. While many organizations understand that “collaboration” is beneficial to their overall operations, they don’t understand that collaboration is a process with several key components. Because of this, a good spirited attempt at collaboration without a clear understanding of the process can often reveal critical gaps in the way a public sector organization operates. In any collaborative process, an organization MUST choose a specific problem and adhere to a solid deadline to come up with the solution.

Consider the case of the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research based out of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The Office is charged with training miners how to survive in the event of a mine accident. However, they had previously staged these training sessions in broad daylight without an emphasis on teamwork. This approach was simply too abstract to be helpful in a real situation. By training miners in groups with the aid of virtual reality helmets that accurately simulated the pitch darkness and confusion of a real mining accident, the organization created an environment that allowed the miners to develop real-world problem solving skills. More importantly, the office understood the fundamentals of the collaborative process: they accomplished a specific goal in a compact and efficient timeframe.

Other public sector organizations have attempted to use in-house social networks without understanding the importance of deadlines. The vast majority of people have difficulty motivating themselves to complete a task without some kind of exterior reminder. Many social networks are based on a design that encourages people to browse indefinitely. Luckily, custom designed collaborative software suites such as OPIN frequently issue alerts or messages reminding people to complete specific tasks. Without some kind of framework that keeps people moving forward, projects frequently are not completed on time. This freewheeling approach to work tends to undermine the effectiveness of collaboration.

Public sector companies must understand the specific problem they are facing and then choose the right tools for the job. Without either one of these key factors, collaborative efforts will fail.

Related articles

• Collaboration Simulations: Think Big (informationweek.com)
• The Technology of Collaboration (csedev.com)
• Getting to Workforce Planning 2.0 with Social Network Analysis (nextgeninsights.com)