The collaboration matrix - what dynamic structures do you tap into to get things done
Task: Because the “outcome” drives the members’ attention and participation
Trait: Because the “interest” drives the members’ attention and participation
Transactional: Because the “process” drives the members’ attention and participation
Social: Because the “shared insight” drives the members’ attention and participation
Related
Cooperation as drum circle, Collaboration as orchestra
When collaborating, people work together (co-labor) on a single shared goal.
Like an orchestra which follows a script everyone has agreed upon and each musician plays their part not for its own sake but to help make something bigger.
When cooperating, people perform together (co-operate) while working on selfish yet common goals. The logic here is “If you help me I’ll help you” and it allows for the spontaneous kind of participation that fuels peer-to-peer systems and distributed networks.
If an orchestra is the sound of collaboration, then a drum circle is the sound of cooperation.
Connectives cooperate.A connective doesn’t give priority to the group or the individual but instead supports and encourages both simultaneously. There’s no shared sense of identity in a connective because each member is busy pursuing their own goals.
The many aspects of collaboration
Connecting > Sharing > Collaborating
NOTES
I like this matrix but the issue I have here is that collaboration is such a misused term.
To me the only true collaboration (co-labor) aspect is the “task” (outcomes driven), which is typical of collectives
The “trait” (interest driven) sounds more like cooperation like using a hashtag (which has no shared identity), but at the same time it can also sound like Communities of Practice which do have a shared identity…so perhaps interest driven can both be a Connective and a Collective…therefore both collaboration (co-labor) and cooperation (co-operate)
The “transaction” (process driven) does not sound like collaboration (co-labor) at all, it sounds like a process workflow
The “social” (insight driven) sounds like cooperation (co-operate) like you see in social networks, which is a connective
To me this diagram is more about how we work, rather than collaboration.
EXAMPLES
X-axis left - more official team with tasks and deliverables
X-axis right - more shared interest volunteered communities
Y-axis bottom - more rigid/repetitive workflow process tool eg. CRM/ERP/BPM
Y-axis top - more ad-hoc knowledge work from an informal social network
ABOUT Y-AXIS TOP
Ad-hoc knowledge work which is always contextual, and improvised, and requires you to tap into your informal network to investigate as there is no manual, and shouldn’t be, rather can’t be, as you can’t be clairvoyant in codifying how to handle every possible situation…the world is too complex anyway, and why would you if that context may never be encountered.
The supply method of codification, which works for transactional work (a manual or workflow diagram), doesn’t apply for adaptive case work, instead we use an on-demand method, in that as we go through the case we are creating the knowledge for others to pick at for a future context…KM as a by-product of doing work.
SPIDERGRAM
Now most of us deal with all of these, we are in teams, CoPs, we have our informal social networks, and we use formal processes and best practices.
But it’s mixed up, sometimes we do tasks in CoPs, sometimes we learn in teams/tasks, etc…ying and yang type thing
What I like about this diagram is that you could take anything you are doing right now or reflect when you have finished something, and plot the weights on the diagram (who cares if it’s springing from a team/task, CoP, informal network…the important thing is what dynamic structures do you tap into to get things done.)
Below we can see this work taking place has high interdependencies, so I’m guessing it’s an outcomes based task. In order to accomplish it they seemed to have tapped into expert topic groups considerably to perhaps ask questions or search for stuff, and they have also traveled their informal networks (people they follow type thing) to sense-make their work…to accomplish this work they seemed to not really rely on formal processes.
So this work was outcomes based, and at the same time very contextual and new as they seemed to not find any processes or best practices to re-use or follow…as we call it knowledge work. It turns out the team intelligence alone was not enough to accomplish it as they needed to turn to expert groups and their informal networks for sources of information, advice and expertise.
JUST TO CONFUSE
Others describe teams as interdependencies to achieve a shared goal; and collaboration as part shared goals and part competing goals…but then is this not cooperation.
Or is cooperation the same as social collaboration
“Where people collaborate outside of the contractual obligations? Which means outside of the role structures & job descriptions in the organization?
