05 Where’s the Action Point? CSD Capability

Activity Requires Capability 

Whether it’s called “communicating to agree on what to do together” or “collaborative solutions development”, the effectiveness of this activity will depend on people’s capabilities to perform it. This points to we call “collaborative solutions development capability”.

What is this capability? A working definition is that collaborative solutions development capability is:

- a person’s or organization’s ability to produce results using a combination of knowledge, skills and tools for process learning, analysis, design, planning, problem solving, communication and consensus building.

That’s clearly a tall order for any one person or organization. However, while highly effective individuals and teams may be relatively rare, again, most people and organizations have this capability to some degree (”communicating to reach agreement on what to do together”).

So let’s test this term further with a few use cases:

- The most critical constraining resource in innovation and IT is collaborative solutions development capability.

- Long cycles of meetings and communications can be shortened with greater collaborative solutions development capability.

- Organizations and individuals with greater collaborative solutions development capability can produce more IT and innovation results.

- The people and organizations with the best collaborative solutions development capabilities are among the most highly rewarded.

- Successful business/IT alignment depends at all levels on exercising strong collaborative solutions development capabilities.

- Collaborative process development capability is a major element of innovation and competitive advantage.

These statements all seem to make sense. So at this point, I have asserted that:

a) it’s a real capability,
b) it’s important, and
c) more of it is generally better.

If that’s the case, then what can be done to increase collaborative solutions development capability?

Next: How to Increase Collaborative Solutions Development Capability