Collaboration and Consciousness
One of the reasons this blog has been somewhat content-lite the last week or so is because I have been working nearly round the clock on a consulting project for a large technology company (this is also the reason I am able to consider, with some insouciance, the purchase of an expensive and troublesome new vehicle). The subject of this project is collaborative computing – new ways to integrate various types of data in a kind of unified field of creation, revision, consultation and consumption. My client feels that the proliferation of these innovations signals a shift from personal productivity (as enabled by mature technologies such as word processing, spreadsheets, design tools, etc) to organizational productivity (removal of human-generated bottlenecks in various processes), bringing us closer to the theoretically friction-free “straight-through processing” model.
It is certainly true that many organizational inefficiencies are caused by lack of communication. It is also the case that the long development cycles of many products are caused by the logistical inability to involve all stakeholders at the earliest phases of the project – thus necessitating many inefficient rounds of review and revision. Will better collaboration technology solve these problems? Perhaps. Certainly in organizations where behavior change can be mandated from the top down, we may see faster adoption of collaborative tools (instant messaging, “teamware,” portals) as they become available. But will a higher level of collaboration actually result in measurable increases in productivity? That’s the multi-billion dollar question. According to everything I’ve seen on the subject, there is no clear answer, and much disagreement as to what would constitute a clear answer.
Personally, I’m rather skeptical. Technology improves process when you build the paths where people walk, not when you build superhighways and tell people to use them. Collaboration as a work style fits the productivity needs of the corporate entity, but is, in a way, fundamentally at odds with the individual agendas and work styles of many employees, especially so-called “information workers.” Political experience has shown that it is only possible to mandate communitarianism in the context of a repressive regime, and that no arguments about efficiency or the greater good will long prevail over the spirit of personal enterprise, even in so trivial a context as a corporate workplace.
More to the point, too much collaboration and communication can be at least as counterproductive and inefficient as too much freelancing. My client’s employer is a big believer in “eating their own dog food” – e.g., immersing themselves in various pre-release versions of their own products to prove their value in the workplace. Consequently, my client’s office is a tangle of network cables and power cords; his computer runs futuristic versions of common office applications, rigged to enable immediate access to customized portals, team sites, people, etc.
I have no prior knowledge to compare, so I can’t say for certain how all this impacts his productivity. I do know that my day-long on-site engagements with him are fragmented by thousands of tiny distractions, and he complains of the enormous volume of email he receives every day (150-200 mails directly to him, not including broadcasts or the occasional spam that sneaks through the corporate filter). Preparing a simple presentation or memo can take hours, since it is not a focused task, but one of several parallel processes he is engaged in at any given time. His opinion is solicited by a whole constellation of people tangential to his primary mission, and he routinely shows up to his own meetings late and little-prepared – not out of laziness or stupidity (he is one of the smartest and hardest-working people I have ever met), but because he simply lacked the time and concentration to get organized.
Working with him on a project of this detail and complexity is like trying to read the Compact Oxford Dictionary through a partly-smashed windshield. He knows his material, he knows where he needs to get to, but the organizational environment in which he works does not permit him the luxury of peace and quiet to gather his thoughts. He is perpetually harried and frazzled, and I find I need many cups of coffee just to keep up with his normal pace.
Has collaboration improved his productivity? It has certainly enabled him to participate in a much wider range of work activities than before, and to build networks of personal contacts which may, in the end, help him accomplish his larger goals. But at a tactical level, this strikes me as a horrible way to work. At one point following a particularly tense conversation with his wife where he had to explain why he wouldn’t be home until after 10pm, I asked him half-joking if this was really the model he wanted to push out to the rest of the world. He smiled a bit. “It may need some work,” he said.
12:12:25 PM 
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