4 Different Types of Collaboration

Without a doubt,organizations are much more likely to achieve better results when their staff works effectively as a team. This is because good teamwork brings about synergy- where the interaction or cooperation of two or more individuals produces a combined effect that is significantly greater than the sum of their separate effects. In general term,this is known as Collaboration.

Definition of Collaboration

Collaboration is basically a purposeful relationship in which involved parties strategically decide to cooperate with the aim to achieve shared or overlapping objectives.Teams that work collaboratively are more likely to obtain greater resources,recognition,and reward especially when facing competition for limited resources.

4 Types of Collaboration- Explained in Detail

Traditional models of collaboration focused more on the teams and formal,structured collaboration. Now that we are in the 21st century,more advanced and highly effective options have come up.

In this article,we have discussed in detail four types of collaboration and how an organization can approach them to reach set objectives.

1. Team Collaboration

In an organization,teams are expected to produce results,but good performance is often hindered when then the team members fail to cooperate. A collaborative team environment is therefore essential for the team's success.

In order to improve team collaboration,team members must fulfill their interdependent tasks within the given time by;

• Having a common purpose and goal

• Build trust amongst themselves

• Clarify roles

• Communicate openly and effectively

• Balance the team’s focus

• Appreciate diversity

A good example is a 10-member team working together to come up with a new marketing strategy with a properly defined set of resources in a period of 3 weeks.

2. Video Collaboration

In video collaboration,business organizations are able to save costs associated with staff travels.

Geographic dispersed participants are able to connect to a live meeting environment without having to travel all the way to the meeting location. This is made possible through video conferencing,a two-way interactive communication that is basically similar to a telephone call,but over video.

With video collaboration,your organization saves significant amounts of money with lower travel costs. It also helps accelerate decision making and significantly reduces marketing time by gathering all stakeholders for productive discussions.

Video collaboration can also help you enable and engage your growing remote workforce by seeing them much more frequently.

ezTalks Meetings is a good example of effective collaboration solutions. With ezTalks Meetings,you can get every single feature your staff needs to effectively conduct business meetings and conversations remotely.

With ezTalks Meetings,you can greatly increase business productivity with rich video collaboration features.

3. Network Collaboration

Network collaboration involves the interaction between organizations and people who are geographically distributed,largely autonomous,and heterogeneous in terms of their operating environment driven by goals,culture,and social capital,but all collaborate effectively to achieve common goals.

Often,the members do not know all other members,but their interactions are largely supported by computer networks.

Network collaboration is mainly driven by social media,universal internet connectivity,as well as the ability to connect with diverse people across distance and time. Also,in this type of collaboration,membership and timelines are open and limitless.

4. Cloud Collaboration

Advanced technology has made cloud collaboration a fast growing solution for issues related to data storage and collaboration in organizations.

By greatly enhancing data storage and sharing,organization staff are able to connect and work collectively as a team- and in a much more efficient and productive manner. Cloud collaboration basically enables two or more members to work on a project at once. The staff uses a cloud-based collaboration platform that allows them to share,edit,and work together on projects.

Other benefits of cloud collaboration include;

• Improved access to larger files

• Higher participation levels

• Better brainstorming

• Real-time updates

• Improved performance of organization

• Community collaboration

In community collaboration,the goal is usually focused on learning,rather than completing projects.

The members of an organization work on sharing and building knowledge. They may go into their immediate communities to help solve their problems while still learning,and then go back and implement their findings in their organizations.

In this type of collaboration,membership may be bounded and straightforward. However,the time period for these activities is often open or continuous. A good example of community collaboration is when members of a team requests for past project samples from their community to refer to in a new project.

This type of collaboration has the ability to give rise to properly defined team collaborations whereas the members get to know each other more,they can choose good fits based on talents and expertise in their areas of specialization.

Conclusion

Collaboration plays a crucial role in the success of an organization since set objectives are achieved rapidly and with finite resources. Often,collaboration requires leadership,although in most cases,the form of leadership can be social within either a decentralized or egalitarian group.

All the same,organization teams that choose to work collaboratively have a greater chance of achieving set objectives,obtaining greater resources,and obtain recognition and reward when dealing with stiff competition for limited resources.