When Collaboration Doesn’t Work – and Never Will

Collaboration is essential for project management success, but it's also important to avoid viewing it as a panacea that cures all project ills. Collaboration is not necessary or helpful in some scenarios, including during brainstorming sessions, when the best person or group has ownership, and when a suitable collaborative work management system is not established. Applying a collaborate framework to brainstorming can result in groupthink, and collaborating with the wider team may slow things down and diminish quality if the best person or group for a task has ownership. Expecting collaboration to happen in an ad hoc mix of disconnected tools is wishful thinking, and enterprises should establish a collaborative work management system to efficiently and effectively collaborate.