What is Collaboration?
Collaboration is a concept of cooperation
Collaboration is often equated with teamwork or cooperation. The meaning of the term goes far beyond this simple explanation. Collaboration stands for a cooperative approach between employees of one or more organisations towards a common goal.
Collaboration on the one hand promotes cooperation between single individuals and on the other hand strengthens the interaction of internal or external, cooperative units, i.e. groups, teams, departments, areas, cooperations and partnerships. If companies work together on developing solutions or selling products, this cooperation is always based on single individuals, i.e. if you think about collaboration and want to improve it, you have to deal with the single individual.
In addition, collaboration uses organisational and/or technical structures and addresses access to information, the use of workflows and the use of tools. Collaboration is therefore more of a concept than simply teamwork or cooperation.
Collaboration skills and abilities
Collaboration requires will, attitude and diverse skills. It is important to develop a common understanding in order to make the cooperation effective and efficient. The following points can contribute to this:
- Purpose: What is it about, who works how, when, why, where and at what frequency with which tools? Only if the individual sees a sense for himself in the cooperation, it can function permanently and well.
- Common goals: The achievement of common and correspondingly defined goals is in the foreground. Group goals are more important than individual goals.
- Mutual support as well as the willingness to share information, knowledge and success.
- Appreciation: Recognition and respect between the participants promotes cooperation. The appreciation finds expression, for example, through active listening, verbal or non-verbal communication, empathy and favorable feedback.
- Positive experiences, trust and the willingness to learn together.
Social Collaboration
In recent years, the term “social collaboration” has established itself for the cooperation of people using software. The conceptual proximity to “social media” is probably no coincidence.
The further the digitalisation of the world of work progresses, the more important social collaboration becomes. Remote work becomes possible because distances in space and time can be bridged. Access to information and the distribution of information is controlled electronically. And communication takes place sequentially and time-shifted – aysnchronously or synchronously in real time (also known as real-time collaboration).
There are a number of tools, platforms or concepts that support social collaboration. Among other things, they are used for
- the planning of projects and developments,
- the management of resources,
- the management of tasks,
- the visualisation of activities,
- the display of work progress,
- the documentation of results,
- the exchange of data,
- the reporting and analysis of data,
- the interaction between different systems,
- or the cooperation between customers and suppliers.
Interestingly, collaboration has long been supported by software, such as groupware, file sharing, intranets, email, video conferencing, and messenger services, so social collaboration isn’t really new.
Collaboration Tools
Again and again the question of “good” collaboration tools arises. But what is good? Is a solution being sought for internal use or should external employees and service providers also be able to access it? What features does the tool have to offer, what skills do users need in order to use it? How elementary is data protection? Where is hosting possible? How important is the sharing of documents and screens, the assignment of roles, the display of requests to speak, parallel chatting, the recording of individual sessions or the use of so-called break-out rooms? There are many aspects to consider when selecting suitable solutions.
Below you will find a list of tools, without claiming completeness and with individual focal points:
- Teamwork – cooperation between team and customer on a shared platform
- Milanote – organising ideas and projects with visual boards
- Evernote – prioritised to-do lists for ideas and projects
- NextCloud – document collaboration, email account, video chats
- Notion – workspace for notes and documents, knowledge base and table management
- Confluence – central information management and exchange for projects, including blog and calendar
- Jira – cloud-based development tool for teams
- Etherpad – open source online editor
- Cryptpad – text and code editor, Kanban and whiteboards, and data storage in the cloud
- jitsi – video conferencing with a focus on encrypted communication
- Basecamp – message boards, to-do lists, chat, calendars and document storage
- Slack – organised communication as an alternative to e-mails
- Conceptboard – visual collaboration with boards, mind maps, calendars, document management
- NETSYNO – digitalisation of processes
- GitHub – development platform for hosting and reviewing code
- GitLab – complete DevOps platform
- Gitbook – management of notes and product information
- Bitbucket – code management platform including coding, testing and deployment
- Mentimeter – interactive presentations with real-time interaction via mobile phone
- Trello – organisation of boards, lists and cards
- Sharepoint – sharing of data, news and resources
- Mural – visual collaboration with diagrams, flowcharts, drawings
- Dropbox – linking and synchronisation of local files and cloud content
- Meistertask – online task management for teams
- Microsoft Whiteboard – digital canvas for developing ideas
- Mipui – create, edit and display maps for table or role-playing games
- Jive – manage relationships between people, content and activities in an ecosystem
- HackMD – real-time collaboration on documentation in teams
- Zoho – platform with over 40 individual applications from CRM to finance and HR
- BigBlueButton – web conferencing for online learning
- WeChat – platform for chatting and making phone calls
- WebEX – video conferencing, webinars and desktop sharing
- GoToMeeting – video conferencing with Office 365 plug-in, among other things
- AnyMeeting – web conferencing and webinar service for small businesses
- Microsoft Teams – platform for chat, meetings, notes and files
- Amazon Chime – online meetings and video conferencing
- Spreed – mobile video communication
- GoMeetNow – video and web conferencing
- Tine Chat – video chat room community
- Samba Live – video conferencing in the browser without downloading
- VSee – group video chat and screen sharing
- Whereby – video meetings without downloads and logins for guests
- RecordCast – online screen recorder and video editor, e.g. for sharing ideas
- Butter.us – online workshops, brainstorming , design sprints, etc.
- …
Impulse to discuss
Should organisations send employees to Meetups in order to benefit from the experiences of others across companies and to promote collaboration across company boundaries?
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Here you will find additional information from our Smartpedia section:
Collaboration à la Coffee Shop
Software selection in 10 steps
A journey through the stages of team development