In a series of articles, we'll address these issue, starting with a basic question: "What is a collaborative application?"
Business collaboration, at its most basic, occurs where individuals work together cooperatively to achieve a goal. Communication and documentation are the vital tools that binds individuals into a group and keeps them focused on the goal.
Communication
Each individual in a group needs access to the same information. While email is the most obvious answer, it possesses major problems. First, email is rarely threaded so that a conversation can be followed among team members. Instead each email, when received, must be reviewed for context; i.e. is Bob talking about the deadline for this milestone or a different milestone?
Second, email belonging to a single group is usually dumped into the same inbox with other emails and spam. Because of this email can be overlooked.
Third, there is no way of tracking whether a team member has logged in and read an email. (Return receipt would notify the sender, but not the entire group).
Documentation
Most of the time a goal either results in a document or needs one or multiple documents to be achieved. Multiple team members need access to documents. They also need to know when a document was last modified, who modified it and how it was modified. When working with multiple versions of documents, each member needs to instantly know which is the most recent.
While documents can be stored in a folder, on a server, this obviously has its problems. Unless sharing is turned on (as can be done in Microsoft Applications), more than one person cannot work on the same document at the same time. There is no way of knowing if a team member is currently working on a document, especially if the document is downloaded to a local computer for editing.
These obstacles are not insurmountable if the team is very small and a strict protocol is maintained, including logging documents in and out for editing. Once a team grows beyond two or three, however, an automated solution makes work flow easier.
Collaborative Applications
Collaborative applications assists in communication and documentation by instituting an administrative framework over the way team member communicate and how documents are managed.
Communication
Most application allow for forum-style discussion threads. Users can immediately trace an entire conversation. Often, email is used to alert team members that a discussion has been updated, but the forum retains the entire conversation.
Some application allow for emails that are tracked within the application itself. This way, group email is kept separate from personal email and the email trail remains attached to the project.
Documentation
On server-based application, team members can 'check-out' documents to work on. Some application allow for multiple members to work on documents simultaneously. Document versions are saved automatically by the application and changes identified by team member.
More advanced application allow, at the very least, the administrator to see who has logged in, at what time, and what forums, email, and documents they have accessed. This not only is vital for administrative purposes, but is also a security feature. Should a leak occur, only those members that accessed the document can be questioned.
Summary
Collaborative applications imposed a framework over a group of individuals working together cooperatively to achieve a goal. It centralizes communication and maintains version control and access tracking.
In the next article, we will look at the features offered by collaboration software and their potential use in small, medium and large business settings.
What about 'smart clients', as per the term Microsoft has been pushing. Do you believe these to be superior to Web 2.0 apps, because of their offline capability, or does ease of distribution tilt the balance?
Posted by: John Milan | July 5, 2006 4:46 PM | Permalink to Comment