I spent 45 minutes on the holiday weekend reading a Cap Gemini white paper (it *was* raining outside :-). It’s an interesting overview on the tangible business benefits to be gained from collaboration – and worth downloading. If you’ve got 5 minutes not 45, I’ve put my notes online here.
This was written, I think, by the same guy I saw in a webcast recently. I liked his thinking and this is a longer version of same. It’s also really interesting to see Cap Gemini essentially challenging the current perceptions of consulting, or (as a cynic may observe) reacting to criticisms of consulting. Good Register write up on this new ‘paradigm’ here. I think this is a mature reaction to the changing nature of outsourcing.
The ‘body shop’ model of consulting – i.e. replacing IT teams and doing rollouts, business ‘transformation’ etc. has basically developed into a commodity business. And it’s difficult to differentiate a commodity, other than by reducing price. By focusing on experience and new working practices, Cap Gemini seem to be placing themselves above the body shop approach – in fact, this collaborative approach seems to be their pitch for creating structures to manage outsourcing.
But I’m pretty upbeat on this approach – if it’s not bullshit. The thinking in the paper touches on several areas of practice that i strongly agree with:
* Rigid, hierarchical organizational designs may stifle the horizontal connecting that is the hallmark of collaboration…
* …We may be seeing the evolution of a new kind of collaborative capability in the next generation workforce, who was brought up on MTV, cell phones and online interactive game play. Our children may be learning a new form of collaborative behavior that depends more on reputation and observed behavior than it does on eye contact.
* Budgets and performance management systems are blunt instruments that can serve to inhibit or promote collaboration within your organization. For managers who are adept at defending their P&L and delivering results at all costs, training in collaborative methods and tools will not be enough to produce behavior change. That will take a change in incentives.
Of course, it doesn’t neccessarily need £1,000 per day teams of consultants (although if you want one, give me a call :-). Cheap, effective KM anyone?. Bake in blogs with the organisational changes talked about here and you’re off to a great start.