Score Less Than 6 Out Of 10 And You're Gonna Have A Tough Time

A most excellent source of information is Achieving effective Enterprise 2.0 from the UK National Computing Centre ("Martin White looks at the benefits and challenges of Enterprise 2.0 adoption and suggests some critical success factors for the effective application of these technologies.")

And if you ever needed to hear it again, DON'T LET YOUR IT DEPARTMENT LEAD YOUR COLLABORATION PROJECT ... got it

The evidence from the McKinsey survey is that less successful implementations take place when IT departments take the lead and order up the applications. All that happens is that the software holds up a magnifying glass to corporate culture and the cracks are very obvious. This is going to be a major problem with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. IT departments are very keen to justify MOSS07 implementations by offering collaboration applications as though there are no other products on the market. That is not the case as a recent CMS Watch report highlights.

Oh, and I loved this:

Try this test developed by Morten Hansen, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the INSEAD Business School. How many of the statements reflect the situation throughout your business?

1. Employees are willing to seek help from outside of their organisational unit, even if this might suggest that they are not performing well.
   
   
2. Employees are able to locate colleagues with information and expertise with the minimum of effort.
   
   
3. Employees feel that they have a duty and a freedom to help others even if there is no immediate benefit, and indeed even a short-term impact on their own work performance.
   
   
4. Employees promptly acknowledge telephone calls and e-mails requesting information.
   
   
5. Employees willingly work together with colleagues from other units to solve specific problems.
   
   
6. The organisation has clearly stated principles related to the value of teamwork and cooperation.
   
   
7. An important element of induction programmes is to give new staff experience of working together in teams from different units, and with staff who have a range of expertise.
   
   
8. Recruitment, development and evaluation procedures provide an opportunity to review and reward collaborative working and knowledge exchange.
   
   
9. Examples of good practice and success in knowledge exchange are given wide publicity and recognition.
   
   
10. Managers who do not support and participate in collaborative working do not gain promotion to senior management positions.

And the key thing is:

Unless you can score at least six then your business is going to have to work very hard to get the best out of Enterprise 2.0 applications.

The article ends with some very salient points on how to run a successful "Enterprise 2.0" project. Most of it you will no doubt read and think, "Duh!" - but are you doing it?