"Collaboration is a critical activity in many operational business processes, both structured and unstructured," said Janelle Hill, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "An XC environment is essentially a virtual war room or crisis center, where people can come together to collaboratively work on a shared purpose."
To enable a culture of extreme collaboration, Gartner identified six things CIOs can do:
- Use a virtual meeting place. Gartner encouraged CIOs to switch from traditional methods of collaboration such as face-to-face meetings or email and embrace virtual collaboration tools, such as social media.
- Take advantage of technology trends. While some organizations might see the incessant use of texting and Facebook as a distraction, Gartner recommends taking advantage of the behavior by incorporating it into work. The real-time component of these technologies could have great benefit to the organization.
- Engage the public. Social media and crowd sourcing are powerful tools that should be utilized to solve problems.
- Adjust reward systems. These systems should reward group collaboration rather than individual efforts to encourage collaboration.
- Analyze social media use. Monitor people's social network influence and identify "strong social networks where a foundation of trust and respect exist," at which point you can use those relationships to "address some critical, cross-boundary process performance challenge."
- Plan group events. To get people thinking differently and using non-traditional forms of collaboration, consider some new approaches, such as using online games for collaboration or turning off email for stretches throughout the day.
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