Dr. Engr. Md. Sakawat Ali

E-mail: sakawat_ali@yahoo.com

Collaboration refers to working with someone else in order to create or produce something. Collaboration skills enable people within an organization (or outside an organization) to engage with each other productively and efficiently. Collaboration is essential in almost all aspects of life and work.

What are Collaboration Skills?

The definition of the word ‘collaboration’ refers to working with someone else in order to create or produce something.

Successful collaboration requires a cooperative spirit and mutual respect. Employers typically seek employees that function effectively as part of a team and are willing to balance personal achievement with group goals.

In some cases, teams that collaborate include members of the same department coordinating on an ongoing activity. In other situations, interdepartmental teams are assembled to form cross-functional teams tasked with completing special projects within a prescribed period of time.

Elements of Successful Collaboration

 The idea of collaboration seems easy enough. Doesn’t it just imply “working together.” But there’s more to it. If you are working with others on a project, take note of these elements of healthy collaboration:

• Establish clear definitions and agreements on the roles of partners in the collaborative process.
• Keep communication open within teams, never withholding information necessary to carry out tasks.
• Reach consensus about goals and methods for completing projects or tasks. Don’t move forward until all members are in agreement.
• Offer recognition of, and respect for, the contributions of all collaborators. It’s important to give credit where credit is due.
• Carefully identify obstacles and address problems cooperatively as they occur. Teamwork is essential at all times.
• Place group goals above personal satisfaction and/or recognition, especially if you are the leader. It’s crucial to put the desired project results at the forefront. Collaboration isn’t about individual goals.
• Be willing to apologize for missteps and forgive others for mistakes. Holding a grudge or sabotaging the efforts of other team members destroys collaboration.

 

Virtual collaboration:

Virtual collaboration is the method of collaboration between virtual team members that is carried out via technology-mediated communication. Virtual collaboration follows the same process as collaboration, but the parties involved in virtual collaboration do not physically interact and communicate exclusively through technological channels. Distributed teams use virtual collaboration to simulate the information transfer present in face-to-face meetings, communicating virtually through verbal, visual, written, and digital means.

Virtual collaboration is commonly used by globally distributed business and scientific teams. Ideally, virtual collaboration is most effective when it can simulate face-to-face interaction between team members through the transfer of contextual information, but technological limits in sharing certain types of information prevent virtual collaboration from being as effective as face-to-face interaction.

Virtual are groups of geographically, organizationally, and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks.  Virtual collaboration is commonly used by globally distributed business and scientific teams.

 

Types of virtual collaboration

1. Synchronous: Synchronous collaboration occurs when team members are able to share information and ideas instantaneously. Examples of synchronous virtual collaboration include instant messaging, chat rooms, and video or audio conferencing.
2. Asynchronous: Asynchronous collaboration occurs when team members communicate without the ability to instantly respond to messages or ideas. Examples of asynchronous virtual collaboration include e-mail, discussion boards, application-specific groupware, or shared databases.

 

Advantages of virtual collaboration:

Pooling of expertise: Virtual collaboration provides more opportunities for experts to join project groups where their knowledge can be best used, and be complemented with other experts whose knowledge contributes to a common goal. Virtual collaboration allows teams to be formed based on subject and expertise, without the restriction of physical proximity of collaborators. The pool of expertise is much greater abroad than in most local team settings, meaning that virtual collaboration gives teams an opportunity to add a quality expert that fits the needs of the team. This can be proved by the fact that dispersed teams with recruited experts tend to have higher net earnings than local teams with a local expert.

 

Cost effective: Compared to face-to-face meetings of distributed group members, virtual collaboration is much less costly. The time and costs associated with transportation to physically bring together team members from different geographic locations can be substantially higher than the cost of a virtual collaborative application. Software used to connect distributed teams can be found for free on the internet, with more feature-loaded and specialized applications having a one-time cost or a paid subscription.

  

Disadvantages of virtual collaboration:

1. Lower Group Potency: Virtual collaboration reduces the interaction among the team members, which leads to ineffective discussion and adoption of option that are risker and perhaps less well considered in face to face communication, as said complex task becomes more complex in VC. Moreover due to anonymity of the expert and invisibility of status effect there arises many issues like pressure to conform, lack of appreciation on the performance and can impact the group processes and outcome significantly.
2. Reduced Cohesiveness: Cohesive groups are generally warm, sociable and personal when it comes to interaction with other members of the group. But with virtual collaboration people tend to have more intragroup conflict than F2F this is due to the exchange of fewer social remarks and less participation.
3. Poor Satisfaction: As 93% of meaning is contained in facial and vocal cues rather than in text. Therefore technology like virtual collaboration are deprived of facial expression, vocal intonations and indicator of understanding therefore there is a lack of trust and satisfaction in the among the team members collaborating virtually.
4. Technological limits: Because technology cannot convey important information, such as context and expressions of emotion, teams are limited in their grounding of knowledge and interpersonal relations. Many of the disadvantages that come with virtual collaboration are the same as those found in virtual groups, due to the fact that virtual groups cannot physically interact with each other. Technology that does not effectively support either collaborators' abilities or the process of the collaboration will result in a "signal loss", or a great reduction in the power of virtual collaboration.
5. Reliance on Technology: Any problems that arise with the technology can obstruct a collaborative effort due to virtual collaboration’s complete reliance on technology for communication. Teams that have do not understand how to use the virtual collaboration technology cannot perform their tasks as efficiently and have higher frustration levels. Malfunctions in the communication technology can also hinder task progress.  Also, incompatible or differing technology used between team members may make it more difficult for task to be accomplished.
6. Asynchronous and lagged communication: Collaborators that are interdependent on each other’s information can experience problems due to the lack of synchronization due to technology. Asynchronous communication does not give team members constant updates in real time, which can lead to coordination and sequencing problems for a task. In video and teleconferencing, time lags due to technology-mediated communication can cause confusion between collaborators. Such coordination problems can frustrate collaborators and result in unnecessary work.
7. Means of exclusion: The method of information transfer in virtual collaboration can allow for team members to choose who does and does not receive information. For example, an email can be sent from one virtual collaborator to others that they choose, and telephone calls can happen between certain collaborators and not others. This means of exclusion, whether intentional or accidental, can cause confusion and conflict within a group, hindering collaborative processes.

 

Tips for Virtual Collaboration

1. Increase cross-cultural awareness
2. Co-create team rules and norms
3. Build virtual trust
4. Trust is the foundation for any successful collaboration
5. Mix communication mediums
6. Make the first meeting face to face.

 

Virtual Team Tools for Communication and Collaboration

1. Google Hangouts. This virtual team communication tool offers services of video calling which is like Skype video conference call
2. ezTalks Cloud Meeting
3. Slack
4. Skype
5. WebEx Meeting Center
6. Dropbox
7. TeamViewer
8. Scoro.

 

Application of Virtual Collaboration

1. Military Applications
2. Medical Applications
3. Entertainment
4. Business and Work-station
5. Education and Training

Key Words: Virtual collaboration