Journal Entry, Week Nine

Journal Prompt: Discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration

There are many benefits to collaboration, and there are some definite challenges.  I will outline what I see as the main benefits and challenges of collaboration.

Benefits:

·         Collaboration Takes Advantage of Different Perspectives – Taking advantage of different perspectives can help to come up with different solutions to problems that you may not have thought of on your own.  Another benefit of different perspectives is that every person sees things slightly different and brings a different knowledge base and skill set.  This is especially true for project management and in the IT industry.

·         Collaboration Breeds Creativity – Same as with having different perspectives allows for more creative ideas to be exchanged.  Teams that collaborate well together will encourage creativity whether it be in advertising, graphics, writing code, creating new software and solving problems.

·         Collaboration Brings Democracy to Decision Making – When collaborating on a project, it gives everyone a chance to have a voice, especially when you compare it to a top-down approach.  In a top-down approach, decisions are made at the top and passed down to the levels.  It does not really give the people on lower rungs a voice since they are just doing the tasks they are told to do.

  Challenges: 

·         Conflict within Collaborative Groups – I’ve heard somewhere, at some time, that “wherever there are groups of two or more, there will be conflict.”  It is inevitable and it will happen.  However, conflicts can be managed with good leadership.

·         Collaboration May Result in Longer Decision Times – For the simple fact that you have many people working together, it may take longer for decisions to get made depending on how well everyone communicates and the tools they use to collaborate.  Communicating often can cut down time for decision making.

·         Collaboration May Have Higher Cost – Ideally, collaborative teams will provide an organization with a quicker turn out which will lower costs for them.  Unfortunately, things are not always ideal. Conflict, scope creep and longer decision times can make a project take longer than planned.  If you have a large collaborative team, expenses can rise quickly.

http://www.brighthub.com/office/collaboration/articles/73856.aspx