01 A Major Gap in the Solution Set
What Is Collaborative Solutions Development?
In the simplest terms, collaborative solutions development is the activity of “people communicating to reach agreement on what to do together”.
Sound simple? That’s a major part of the problem. Everyone can do this to some extent (and that’s a major part of the solution, as described a little later on).
The challenge is that when the “what to do together” becomes complicated, the “communicating to reach agreement” can take a very long time. In these situations, being able to perform this activity “to some extent” just isn’t enough. However, because people can do it at all, they keep trying, making small bits of progress, often not recognizing that they need more power.
The Need for More Power
In business language, collaborative solutions development is the activity of stakeholders and developers working together to learn, analyze, design and implement business and technology processes.
This activity occurs in:
- business systems analysis,
- project management,
- product management,
- business development, and
- complex sales.
In terms of the problem that it addresses as an answer, collaborative solutions development is the activity of bridging the gap between
|
Separate knowledge and interests |
=> and <= |
Stakeholder alignment on detailed processes and plans |
The Pain Point
The primary symptom of this bottleneck is long cycles of meetings and communications in which work products and agreement about them are often gradually, incompletely, and painfully assembled.
While these meetings and communications are irreplaceable elements of collaborative solutions development, the net result of this bottleneck is billions of dollars a year of cost, risk, error and delay, with matching levels of frustration, conflict and stress, stalled innovation and progress, and lost opportunity.
A Major Bottleneck in Innovation and IT
This gap is a major bottleneck in:
- funding, planning and cooperation for research and development;
- complex selling efforts, either internal or external;
- business transformations
- systems integration;
- pre- and post sales support;
- project management, BPR, BPM;
- audit, six sigma, BPO, M&A;
- training, recruiting, and career counseling;
- all development project phases within all industry sectors.
This bottleneck is a major factor in the challenges of:
- business/technology alignment,
- the “skills crunch”,
- globalization,
- environmental issues, and
- accelerating competitiveness.
Scope Not Believeable?
If it seems not credible that a single activity can have such a wide scope of impact, take another look at it:
|
Separate knowledge and interests |
=> X <= |
Stakeholder alignment on detailed processes and plans |
Now, identify three situations of more than everyday complexity that you have been recently involved in that required bridging this gap. How did they go?
Where’s the Relief? A Major Gap in the World’s Solution Set
There are many solutions that attempt to address this bottleneck, in categories including collaboration, decision support, process modeling and project planning.
However there is no single highly effective, widely used solution on the market today. To test this assertion, ask “What is the name of such a solution?”