Implementing Mass Collaboration in Enterprise

It’s great to hear additional perspectives on the implementation of Enterprise 2.0. We’re at early stages of this movement. Many are those who will tell you they are inspired or many will tell you they can sell you the answer. Which is why it’s great to hear real case studies grounded in results from the field. Here are my notes on Stephane Cheikh’s talk on implementing enterprise collaboration at SITA in Geneva.

How to Get Started
1. engage with a small team that expressed the need
2. document needs
3. choose 2 products, simple is key
4. demo both
5. team use both
6. reconvene for feedback
7. decide on 1 tool
8. rollout

IT or not IT?
– controversial but really, you don’t need them
– power to the user, ASP models
– cons of IT delays, complexity, not meeting user req’s deployment issues, no moderation

[Echo’s other feedback start with pilot projects seems to be a main theme we are hearing]

Engage w/ sm team
Understand pain points
Identify key document process
Innovate around that
Promote – recognize leaders

key lessons:
start small
when you do your demo try to customize as much as possitble user needs (and expected benefits/ what’s in it for me? (the user/audience)
train your users, and train again
use the tools
moderate, maintain the first 4 to 6 weeks (the critical period for them to see value)
make sure managers of teams are using the tools
once started look for other process or users to bring in

It is a full time job for someone to implement enterprise collaboration
you will need:
-patience
-hand holding
-lobbying
-politics
-psycology

Enterprise Collaboration is not [just] a technology but human behavor project
uptake is slow but the reward is high

understand the process of your particular context. understand the current processes no matter how crazy. you are trying to “Pave the mad-cow path”