KM:  Collaborative Work Systems ("CWS")

Critical Success Factors ("CSFs")

CSFs for an effective and successful CWS will depend on the following elements:

• people;
• culture (that supports collaboration, i.e., knowledge sharing);
• process(es);
• technology;
• a plan along with achievable and/or realistic goals;
• ongoing communication.

Additional CSFs will be derived based upon the the organization, its size and what it is trying to accomplish. As such, CSFs can and will vary from organization to organization.  At a minimum, however, an organization's CSFs should include:  people, culture, process(es), and technology.  When we speak about people it is imperative that the right people are selected for the team.  People can and will encompass culture; however, culture is listed as a separate CSF to highlight its relative importance to the success of a CWS.  Culture must support collaboration (knowledge sharing), and within that culture there must be strong leadership.  Polley defines people, process and technology as follows:

people:  "Setting examples for others, management walking the walk.  Creating a 'learning' organization. Incentives and direction to share. E.g., spot bonus, team goals, mentoring"

process:  "Simple processes that allow knowledge to be captured easily and reused -- e.g., Peer Assists, AARs, Retrospects, Interviews"

technology:  "Allows storing knowledge, sharing best practices and questions, and communicating virtually across the organization" (Knowledge Management in a Multinational Law Department: The Schlumberger "LawHub," 2003).

People, process and technology may just be the knot that ties it all together.  (Note:  image (of knot) from Economist Intelligence Unit, Collaboration Transforming the way business works.)

With people comes trust, and that is a critical factor for knowledge sharing and successful team work.  Whenever possible the people that make up the team should have diverse backgrounds (diversity and/or differences are important when selecting team members as well).  These CSFs are the backbone of a CWS; without these factors, the efforts of CWS are futile; the CWS is non-existent and will fail.

CWS tend to fail because of distrust among team members, lack of clearly defined goals and responsibilities, insufficient resources, and interaction of the wrong "types" of individuals, a lack of communication and an unsupportive culture.

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