What Makes Collaborations Succeed: The Collaboration Factors Inventory

Also featured: Our list of collaboration resources

Click here to view/complete The Collaboration Factors Inventory online

 

From Vince Hyman, Publishing Director, Fieldstone Alliance:

Why do some collaborations soar where others fail?
If you're just starting a collaboration, how can you assess its chances for success? Is there a way to jumpstart a stalled collaboration?

We get asked these questions a lot--and often asked whether we've got a book on the topic. In fact, we do have something that can help. In 2001, we revisited the research on what makes collaborations succeed. (See Collaboration: What Makes It Work, 2nd Ed. As part of that book, we released The Collaboration Factors Inventory.)

The inventory is available at no cost on our web site, where you can take it online and get an immediate score. We put it there to help your collaboration succeed!

This inventory was developed and tested by Wilder Research Center over a period of eight years. It is designed to help a potential or existing collaborative assess its strengths and weaknesses relative to the 20 success factors. If a group has just begun to consider a collaboration, the group members can use the inventory to assess their readiness to collaborate--and make plans to remedy weaknesses that might torpedo the collaboration.

Longstanding collaborations can use the results to unblock logjams, surface unspoken agendas, and troubleshoot problems. It gives the collaboration a less subjective way to talk about issues of trust, resources, leadership, communication, and other problems that might otherwise be too sensitive to bring up in a group setting.

Other resources to aid collaboration
Two years ago, our managing editor Kirsten Nielsen assembled the Collaboration Resource List. It is frequently visited at our site, and was included in the Council on Foundations' 2003 conference proceedings.

Those of you looking for a quick overview on collaboration may download Carol Lukas's article, "Four Keys to Collaboration Success." This is the birds-eye view of the most significant success factors when collaborating.

Of course, our best-known work--one you are no doubt familiar with--is Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey by Michael Winer and Karen Ray. This is one of our most frequently requested books. It lays out a step-by-step path for forming a collaboration. And two years ago, co-author Karen Ray compiled the results of her work consulting to collaborations over the past ten years into a new text that helps collaborations become more nimble--released as her aptly-titled The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success. While not as well-known as its older sibling, the book was a winner in ForeWord Magazine's business/economics category--evidently, the business world is catching on to the benefits of collaboration. We'll cover more on Karen's discoveries in a future edition of "Tools You Can Use." Her work with some very large collaborations has opened ways to speed the success of system-wide changes--an area where collaborations excel, but which can be very cumbersome to manage.

Of course, collaboration is not the only way for organizations to work together. At the far end of the spectrum, organizations may actually merge, or collaborations may formalize their work as a new 501c3. At the other end are the overlooked tools of simple cooperation and coordination. This spring, we'll be releasing a new book that helps organizations understand when it makes more sense to use these less intense partnerships--and how to make them work.

A tapestry woven of promises, obligations, self-interests, multiple agendas, assumptions, communication styles, and leadership styles of every stripe and hue, the collaboration is a work of abstract art with tremendous concrete results. It has become the preferred method for many goals. We hope the tools we've provided make your collaborative efforts more productive.

Sincerely,

Vince Hyman
Publishing Director
Fieldstone Alliance

January 26, 2005

 

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