In February 2005 Karen Best joined DPI to kick off a pilot project aimed at improving collaboration in the department. Stephanie Ng joined the project in July and together they set about trying to better understand how collaboration worked in DPI. Using interviews and surveys they discovered that more than 50% of collaboration occurred with people outside the department yet they lacked any significant extranet environment. Collaboration was mostly done using email and while internal teams had created a proliferation of teamrooms (400+) and quickplaces, many were in various states of disrepair and there was a general malaise among staff regarding their utility. After some more digging Karen and Stephanie concluded that there was very little wrong with the tools; the problem was more about how collaboration tools were introduced and supported.

DPI staff wanted more choice, didn’t want to spend a day learning a software package and preferred simplicity instead of over-blown functionality. And when asked what type of technology assistance they wanted, a majority asked for project management tools. On the surface this sounded like a request for project scheduling, gantt charts and resource allocation software tools–and the department did invest in this type of product. On further investigation the project team learned that people just wanted a place to discuss their project and share some documents. To address this need the project introduced open source collaboration tools including ProjectForum (wiki) and Website Toolbox (discussion forum).

Karen and Stephanie have intentionally adopted an organic approach to the uptake of these tools. They have developed a set of guidelines and templates for teams to use as boilerplate advice and instructions such as moderator role description, file naming conventions and netiquette. Team members decide what to use and what to discard. The project has been tough on people wanting to use the tools in the sense they want to ensure the team has management support, has allocated sufficient resources to managing to collaboration space and there is a clear understanding of why they are using an online approach.

They feel like they are only at the beginning of their collaboration journey but have already learned many valuable lessons. For example, people want considerable flexibility in how the tool can be used and avoid solutions which feel ‘canned’. In one case two teams set out developing their collaboration environments at the same time. Both teams were doing the same internal management course yet both established a distinctly different online space for themselves. Both teams were also adamant that what they did was right for them.

The team also learned that people need places to try things our before they decide which direction to take. Sandpits are both necessary and fun additions.

Finally, the collaboration project found that using a wiki enabled a team to create a newsletters incrementally and socially. At the beginning of the month a new page is created on the wiki and everyone (in this case 60 people) are invited to add their news to the page. It has become quite a social newsletter which has help bind the team. Interestingly most contributions are from women and we were wondering whether this approach is more attractive to women?

Let me know if you would like me to visit your project and create a mini case study for the KMLF. We are attempting to create an online place were people find out what is happening in KM in Melbourne. There are plenty of things going on but probably not under the rubric of KM. We are interested in anything related to learning, knowledge sharing or innovation.