Two weeks ago I was asked to run a workshop on collaboration at an event in China. Based on some of the ideas I shared in an earlier blog, I developed the content of the workshop. What daunted on me, listening to people in the audience, is that both the users and the providers keep talking about tools, without looking at the full portfolio of needs. Let's look at what those are.

I am starting from a very simple model, in collaboration both structured and unstructured information needs to be shared, while interactions may have to be synchronous or asynchronous. Let's look at each of the four areas in a little more details:

• Asynchronous exchange of structured data. Most business to business transactions are of this category. Indeed, information is shared by the sender when it becomes available, and picked up by the receiver when it can be processed. There is no expectation by the sender of an immediate response. EDI transactions for example, follow this scheme.
• Asynchronous exchange of unstructured data. Exchange of documents, review processes, calendar planning etc., typically follow such scheme. Here again the information is shared by the sender at a particular moment in time, and processed by the receiver when he/she has availability. A good example is the review of a document. The author will send it when he/she finishes writing the first draft. The reviewer will take time to review and post comments. When done the document will be sent back to the author who will take the feedback into account and issue draft 2.
• Synchronous exchange of structured data. Some collaboration requires immediate commitments. For example, when an OEM requests whether a contract manufacturer has the necessary capacity available to produce a particular batch of product, the OEM expects a response (positive or negative) allowing him to allocate the production to this or another supplier. This is a two way collaboration where the messages are directly related to each other and as such synchronous.
• Synchronous exchange of unstructured data typically relates to direct human interactions or joint work on a document, a CAD file etc.

You are probably saying, what's the issue? We use B2B software for the first and the third category; we use e-mail for the second and unified communication and telepresence for the fourth. This is how many companies look at the collaboration issues. But they forget one thing, what if within one conversation, we move from one category to another. How do we keep track of what has happened and how things evolved?

Let me take an example. Let's assume an OEM and its contract manufacturer jointly work at the development of a new product. First specifications are written. The OEM develops the first draft, sends it to the CM for review and comment. The CM realizes that by slightly changing the specifications, manufacturing could be done cheaper, resulting in benefits for both companies. They send an updated specification to the OEM. All this happens through e-mail. But the OEM is not really convinced and decides a synchronous interaction is required. So, a call is set-up between the parties and a negotiation takes place, after which a new version of the specifications is developed. At this point in time at least two technologies have been used. But now, the actual development starts, using CAD and CAE tools. Subsequent versions of the design are exchanged to ensure manufacturability, regular design reviews take place, till the product is finalized and production is getting planned. Engineering change management tools, collaboration and communication tools are used throughout the process, but how do we maintain consistency of the information and logging of all decisions taken.

You may ask yourself why this is important. Well, let's assume the product has warranty problems, how can we identify which decision got us in trouble, allowing us to understand better what happened and improve things in the future.

The tools exist today, but each of them is taken in isolation. Google seems to be trying to address that through their Wave project, but Wave is focused at consumers. Who will address the true problem of collaboration in the enterprise space, particularly now that business travel has been reduced while companies become more international? Employees are expected to increase their productivity while neither tools nor training is provided regarding global collaboration.