Establish work practices that support innovation

Collaborating in the workplace

You may need to collaborate with your colleagues on an idea for a day, a week, or sometimes years. Often there are false starts and many failings; you may want to give up. You can spend a lot of money, and be frustrated with each other more than once.

However you can also experience the excitement of creating something from scratch, the thrill of when your creation actually works, and the joy that comes from seeing someone else implement your idea.

Collaboration is the most powerful basis for process and product development in all areas of business.

It develops objectives around:

technology
products
customers
markets
deploying talent
energies
time
other resources.

Collaboration also facilitates:

decision making
organisation of workflow
development of systems and processes for resource allocation
management of information
assessment.

Consider and write a report on the collaborative work that currently happens in your workplace.

List where you see collaboration carried out in your workplace.
How many people are involved?
What has been achieved?
How much time was invested in the project?
What processes were involved in achieving the end result?
What would you change or aim to do better in the future?

Share your observations with colleagues and other learners about where you see collaboration actively used in the workplace. Post your response to the ValleyView meeting room using the topic Collaboration in the workplace, and compare other learners’ responses.