Collaboration - it's this year's hottest project management buzz word. Webster's Dictionary defines Collaboration as "to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort." or; "to cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one's country." While the 2nd definition might describe a large number of project management environments, it is, of course the notion of getting project management teams to "work together" that ensured that project managers would eventually adopt collaboration as a cause celèbre.

But what does collaboration really mean in the context of Modern Project Management? Over my next few columns we'll be looking at the movement towards collaborative project management. We'll look first at what collaboration means when we apply it to project management and who should be collaborating. Then we'll look at what they should be collaborating on. Finally we'll look at collaborative project management tools and how to deploy both them and a collaborative project management process.

If you're hoping that I've got inside information on how this all works, you're in for a disappointment. The industry as a whole is just starting to attack this whole notion of collaboration. This has been a debate that has increased in intensity over the last 18 months or so as new project management products have established a new category of tools in the collaborative arena.

First of all, It's a truism that the better project teams communicate the better their chances at bringing in a successful project but collaboration is more than a medium for communication. Let's consider first who should be collaborating. Obviously we'd like everyone involved in the project management process to collaborate in some way. After all, if there is some value to be contributed by someone, they should be able to do so as part of a collaborative process.

A common error is to blur the concepts of collaboration and communication and then to compound this error by making no distinction in who is asked to collaborate within the project process. This has been seen more and more lately when using collaborative project management software where suddenly every project team member is given equal access to every other member including the project leader, project sponsor, even the client.

In some organizations (no, I'm sure yours is not one of them) project management software has been implemented with the expectation that it would immediately start managing the project. It is unfortunately the case with collaborative tools also. When project team members are given access to powerful communication tools with no management of how those tools will be used, chaos ensues.

So, collaboration is not just communication? No - of course not. Communication is a critical element to be able to work together. It is essential for project team members to be able to communicate so any tools which enable communication has the potential to enhance team member cooperation. Yet effective communication is not measured in volume. Being able to work more effectively as a team relies on some of the following elements:

Knowing what you're collaborating on
Just communicating a lot will not deliver a project any faster or cheaper. In fact, uncontrolled communication will almost certainly inhibit the project team members from working effectively. So the best place to start is to identify what you should be communicating about and determining the best method of communicating over each of these elements. For example, in many companies, e-mail has taken over much too much communication. Now colleagues might actually email each other from cubicle to cubicle only a few feet away! In such a case, verbal communication might be much more effective. When communication requires a dialog, sometimes a telephone call or even a face-to-face meeting will be most effective. Just because you now have on-line chat software as part of your collaborative project management software doesn't mean that all communication should now occur via keyboard.

Know who is collaborating
If there are only 3 or 4 team members on a project then communication is very easy to establish. In fact, unless the team members are widely separated by geography, there is probably no reason to implement a tool in order to get people communicating. When there are larger groups however, some semblance of order must be imposed on communications tools. This means establishing some rules on who should communicate with who. This probably means identifying team members by role and responsibility and then setting up lines of communication between members who need to reach each other. Where certain members should not have direct interaction with each other, this access should be restricted through whatever tools are established.

Don't build Rome in a day
I know I've said this before but implementing a change in culture even when using what may seem to you as revolutionary tools is a slow process. I know, I know, you can install the new software in 20 minutes and therefore shouldn't you be able to be collaborating tomorrow morning? Yes, in theory but not at all in practice. In practice, you're new system will be a flash in the pan which carries no lasting impression if it is not implemented as part of a culture change. The best place to start implementing your collaborative process is on a white board with experienced team members helping to identify the bottlenecks in your existing process. Look to see where your existing structure inhibits you from working effectively together and implement the fewest number of changes possible that will impact the worst of your bottlenecks.

Collaborating is working together. It's unfortunately not enough of a definition for software publishers to create a perfect answer for. Some of the newest project management software tools on the market are addressing a wide range of functionality that publishers believe is in the collaborative category. Unlike the classic project management tools that have dominated the industry thus far, these new collaborative tools go beyond project scheduling, resource leveling and critical path methodology to embrace a number of new areas of functionality. Publishers of new products and old alike are tackling these issues.

Some of these functions include document management, issue tracking, on-line chat, structured email, risk assessment, distributed schedule progressing and, of course, project schedule reporting.

Should you be moving to collaborative project management software? It's not for everyone. It's all to easy to look at your dissatisfaction with your existing performance in the project management arena, immediately blame the classic scheduling tools you've been using and declare "Ahh, if I'd only been using one of these new collaborative tools, we'd all be working together more effectively and we'd have that project completed by now!" Sorry, it's not that easy. First of all, for most organizations, the requirement for the analytical tools to be found in classic project scheduling tools isn't going away. Just because most interfaces are now web-based doesn't mean that you will no longer require highly skilled project schedulers. In fact, the need to integrate these highly skilled project team members with other members who are not as involved in the analysis of the schedule itself is one of the potential benefits of integrating collaborative functionality into your project management environment. You need to take a look for yourself at what your organization requires.

Next time we'll look at who could or should be collaborating in the project management process and how they can go about it using the new tools available.