Anecdote: Building a collaboration capability

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5/04/08 |

Building a collaboration capability - the quick quiz

By Shawn. Filed in Collaboration.

A while back we talked about three types of collaboration: team, community and network. So here's a quick quiz to help you understand just how collaborative your organisation really is. This little quiz is part of our upcoming article on Building a Collaborative Capability by Mark, Nancy White and me. If you want to get a preview copy just sign up for our newsletter if you not already a subscriber.

Answer true or false to the following statements.

Team

You enter into collaborations as peers with each person playing a valued role. True/False?
Teams are recognised and celebrated as a unit. True/False?
People enter into collaborations with a feeling of promise. True/False?
There is someone in your organisation you can turn to to learn more about effective collaboration approaches. True/False?
You have access to relevant and useful collaboration technologies and are encouraged to use them. True/False?

Community

There are other people in the organisation who have similar interests and passions who you connect with regularly to learn from each other. True/False?
Your organisation actively supports communities of practice. True/False?
The conversations your community is having are engaging and help you do a much better job. True/False?
Your community is coordinated by a passionate individual who is supported by a small group who really care about the community. True/False?
Managers see the value of participating in your community and activity support your attendance. True/False?

Network

More than half the organisation are using social book-marking approaches and tagging web pages. True/False?
People can recount stories of where they have found information from someone else's book-marks, blogs or wikis that made a significant contribution to their work. True/False?
New communities have formed based on the realisation that people where interested in similar topics. True/False?
The organisation actively supports the use of network collaboration technologies such as social book-marking, blogs, wikis, tagging and RSS. True/False?
Senior leaders are using network collaboration technologies. True/False?

Give yourself 1 point for each time you answered True. Add up your points.

15 points: Collaboration nirvana. If you like working with high performance teams, communities or networks, never leave this organisation.

14-11 points: Damn good, keep it up. Lot's of opportunities to tackle complex problems and achieve tremendous results.

5-10: So so. Things are getting better and the signs of life are there.

1-4: Dismal effort. Most of the time the hero sweeps in on their white stead and saves the day receiving all the glory despite all the hard work everyone else actually did.

0: Collaboration hell. If collaboration is your thing why are you still there?

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