There is more to Teaming than Collaboration
When asked to do an article on Teaming plus Conferencing, I had to have a good think about what to write, so as not to cover topics or items that have been covered in previous issues. I should have an advantage having worked for both SiteScape and Novell, nevertheless, I still had to give this article some serious thought.
It then occurred to me that many of the previous articles covered the functionality or the reasons why organisations should use Teaming plus Conferencing. What most of the articles, and indeed seminars I have seen, have not really covered is what can be done with the product. They have covered some topics which have included user case studies but have not gone into much detail nor have they covered the human element. During my years at SiteScape, I saw many companies and organisations do a variety of activities with the product as well as having policies that varied wildly. However, before I get to this, I think it is worth explaining some of the functionality and the way it works within Teaming. For instance, there is the usual mantra “It’s a web 2.0 application with blogs, wikis and discussion forums”. What is not explained is the context of how they can work, because team work spaces each have their own configuration for user access so you can have a team blog instead of just an individual blog.
Usually a blog is nothing more than a web diary with a single person’s thoughts and ideas. Other users who read this blog can then leave comments. Well the same is true in Teaming, except that you can have a team blog. “What good is this?” I hear you ask. Well for one, it allows everyone in a team to contribute their ideas and thoughts in a diarised manner. For example, you may have a sales team working on a large enterprise account, they may have meetings and discussions with multiple contacts in that account and this allows them to comment on what happened in that account and mention ideas. This gives everyone a holistic view of what is happening in that account.
I have seen many cases of where sales people have worked against each other without ever knowing it. Furthermore, the team could have another blog in which they share ideas with the customer and the customer can comment on these ideas or even make their own additions to the blog. In this way, there is a common sharing of information and ideas. This is the whole point of having an enterprise social networking application. Similarly with Wikis, there is normally just one ever expanding Wiki in an organisation, if they have one at all! However each Team Workspace can have its own Wiki - access to which can be controlled, which means that either multiple people can contribute in a classic sense, or just one person can control what is put into the wiki. If for instance, you have a team bidding to win a project, or a team working on a project, they could have their own Wiki with terminology related purely to that project. If someone new joins the team, they can get up to speed quickly.
For Knowledge Managers, this is a dream, as it allows the capture of information from many sources in a really easy manner.
One of the things that really makes Teaming powerful, is not just its powerful collaboration capabilities, but the fact there as an application it is really versatile. Teaming incorporates both work-flow and forms creation capability. Using these in combination allows organisations to create almost any type of application they require. This can range from HR applications – everything from collaborating on putting together a job spec – then getting CVs from applicants and approving or rejecting them, right through to hiring the individual. From there other processes can kick in. For instance: approving mobile phone and laptop purchase, approval to get network connectivity and so on.
We used it to submit expense claim forms at SiteScape. This makes life much easier, as the traditional way of submitting an Excel spreadsheet was via email. You had no idea whether it was approved or not until the manager decided to send an email if at all! In Teaming you always know what status your submission is in and everyone involved in the chain of approval was updated via notifications until the process was complete.
These are a just a couple of examples I have touched on. However, there is actually no limit to what can be created within Teaming. Previous SiteScape, and now Teaming, customers use it for a variety of applications, CRM, HR, procurement, managing bid processes, knowledge management systems for the petroleum industry, research and development particularly in the automotive industry. In education, it is used in a variety of ways, from lecturers’ assigning students tasks and virtual classrooms to examiners creating exams for student courses and securely controlling access to the exams until they are required.
What appears to be ignored is the human element in collaboration. Many of the companies I have dealt with have implemented the system in a strictly controlled fashion. In fact IT departments have tied the system down considerably. When speaking to the business they then complain that the system is not flexible. However, where companies have allowed flexibility, these systems tend to shine. For example: Instead of letting the IT department create the Team work spaces and creating the permissions for these work spaces, let your employees do this. There are many cases of companies that have to collaborate on projects and Teaming is perfect for allowing external access to the system in a secure manner. It is much easier for the project manager to create permissions for all participants than sending a request to IT to do this.
I can already hear IT managers screaming at this, but remember the world is changing, collaboration systems are really taking off and it is this freedom of choice that allows enterprise social applications to become successful by allowing the system to grow naturally the way that users want it to grow. After all, for the system to be any use at all it has to have active participants who contribute to it often.
Jeff Royle
33 Degrees South Ltd
March 2009
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