On The Smarter Office blog, I wrote about the dangers of pushing collaboration too far:

“In a couple of recent conference presentations, I’ve shared some concerns with taking the concept of collaboration too far, or pushing it into areas that are ill-suited to the nature of collaborative interaction. While collaboration is a human behaviour and particular way of working, at a business level it is a potential strategy for bringing people together, creating high performance teams, enabling innovation, and leveraging the strength available across an organization. In this post I want to examine boundaries around the strategy of collaboration, highlight the warning signs, and attempt to lend a steadying hand in your use of collaboration approaches.“

I talk about four concerns:
– Killing initiative through micro-task collaboration
– Designing jobs poorly and relying too much on internal experts
– Increasing communication demands due to having too many people involved
– Stimulating madness through crowds, not uncovering wisdom

Read more: Taking Collaboration Too Far