the history of collaboration
First Generation: In the late 1990s, collaboration technology
meant little more than slapping a web browser interface on project management and scheduling software that ran on older
server networks.
Second Generation: Tools were rewritten from the ground up,
according to emerging web standards. This evolution made more of
the software’s features available over the Internet—not only to team
members, but to customers and other stakeholders.
Add-Ons: Project management vendors next added new, complementary products to their portfolios, such as centralized web
portals. New companies sprouted up to provide innovative alternatives, including web-based “teamware” and peer-to-peer messaging tools.
Free Speech: The last two years have seen the growth of free or
inexpensive “open source” collaboration software such as wikis,
which are easily downloaded and distributed to project teams over
the Internet.
Wireless World: The network “backbone” evolved from private
local wide-area networks and the wired Internet to small, localized
wireless “hot spots.”
Coming Soon: Expect to see broader wireless coverage from metropolitan WiMAX networks and even satellites.
PMI’s Kiev Chapter. “It helps to coordinate
activities, and we don’t miss important things.”
At Benjamin Moore & Co., Montvale, N.J.,
USA, web-based project management software
AtTask allows teams to collaborate on application development projects by tracking issues and
requests, says Kurt Reisinger, the company’s
business application manager.
The benefits of the new high-tech team collaboration extend even to training, says
Alfonso Bucero, PMP, founder, partner and
director of Bucero PM Consulting, Madrid,
Spain. Tapping into the company’s Windows
SharePoint Services portal, “a new member
joining our company needs less coaching and
mentoring from senior people at the beginning,” he says. “All the foundation, processes
and real experiences are available in our collaboration portal.”
could be passed to someone and team members might
miss information if they missed meetings. Now everyone gets general information from the portal’s home
pages, reviews an up-to-date notice board, checks documents in and out, accesses process and risk information, and views live schedule and milestone reports.”
Online accessibility can improve project tracking by
making it easier for team members to report their daily
progress. UPT Ltd., a software development firm in
Kiev, Ukraine, uses open-source Achievo project tools
from ibuildings.nl to track billable hours and manage
distributed teams. “The main advantage of the systems
we use is that they are online tools,” says Vitaliy
Perekupka, the company’s CEO and chairman of
Beyond E-mail
E-mail is often the easiest, quickest way to get a
group discussion going. Team members can hit
the “reply all” button to share comments and
project documents. The typically one-to-one channel
turns into a virtual meeting room.
Things can get unwieldy, however, as the frequency
of messages and number of participants increases.
What’s more, e-mail is an inherently asynchronous
medium—messages can be read and responded to at any
time. There can be an over-reliance on automation,”
when in some cases “it would have been much more
effective with a telephone conference,” Mr. Light says.
Instant messaging (IM) is another popular alternative. Once dismissed as a mere teenage obsession,
it has since emerged as a serious corporate communication medium, but issues remain. Though synchronous, it’s still primarily a one-to-one channel
