Collaboration

A few years back, my wife was lamenting the state of our yard - it was clearly not one of the "super lawns" that exist in our neighborhood.    While I preferred to think of it as preserving a bit of Minnesota prairie, she did not agree with the greenish-brown color so off to the store I went to get some fertilizer.    After a nice walk around the yard with the spreader, I was sure things would go green - and they did.   Except where I spilled a bit too much.   That dead, brown spot served as a reminder about too much of a good thing for two years.

I've come to think of collaboration like fertilizer.   Without it, things become stale and don't grow nearly as fast as they could.   At the same time, too much can be harmful.   Today, it seems like many organizations have gone to extremes in encouraging collaboration and as a result have ended up with "extreme collaboration".     If a little collaboration is good, a lot of collaboration must be better, right?

Well, maybe not so much.   While collaboration is an excellent way for cross functional teams to work towards common goals at the start, it can limit productivity and progress if not applied carefully throughout the remainder of the project.    The documentation team could probably move more quickly without the marketing folks suggesting different wording for each chapter of the user guide, for example.   The entire engineering team probably doesn't need to be part of the design group's working sessions - they just need the results.      Forcing collaboration in this case leads to paralysis - everyone needs to know and be involved in everything.   Unfortunately, few individuals possess the vast array of skills to be effective in such a role - creative design, user experience, software development, product commercialization, and other such areas each are highly specialized.    Coordinating the efforts between these various areas is a perfect application of collaboration across functional teams.   Coordinating the efforts within a specific group is best left to those within that group.

Like fertilizer, collaboration is a wonderful thing that can improve growth, provide a better end result, and improve the overall conditions when applied properly.    And like fertilizer, too much can have an effect opposite of what is desired.

What do you think?  Have you ever burned a hole in your lawn?