An Overview of the Collaboration Maturity Index (CMI24)
- Introduction to ‘The Collaboration Maturity Index (CMI24)’
- What are the important Collaboration Capabilities that must be acquired and/or built?
Introduction to ‘The Collaboration Maturity Index (CMI24)’
This reference model specifically addresses guiding an organisation in achieving high performing collaborative practices, and adoption of collaborative technologies to facilitate attaining ‘Leadership’ Levels across multiple domains, within and across organizations.
What is Collaboration?
“Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people, teams or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavour that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus”
Collaboration is fundamentally an interpersonal activity and can be observed not only by results but by behaviours, processes, leadership, and culture.
Why consider Collaboration?
There are many known and accepted benefits of Collaboration. However fundamentally organisations adopt and promote a Collaboration culture to improve their performance and stakeholder satisfaction. They do this by enhancing the communications, teamwork, and stakeholder engagement in the strategic and day to day business of the organisation at an organic level.
Management provides leadership, example, support and tools to staff that empower staff to take ownership of their outputs and those of the teams through Collaboration, rather than through command and control, rules, policies, and more formal structured practices.
“Organisation is Collaboration - Business is predominantly carried out by organisations, and an organisation is essentially an arrangement of people working together for a common goal. In other words, Collaboration is the essence of any organisation, and organisations exist to better organise Collaboration” Ref. 2009 “Collaboration in the Cloud” by Sogeti & Microsoft.
Effective Collaboration can be enabled by software tools and: -
• Speeds up Responsiveness (Finding and Sharing Knowledge & Information)
• Facilitating Innovation (Ideation, Building, Sharing and Testing)
• Enhancing Learning (Access to Knowledge, Skills, Coaches & Mentors)
• Growing the competence mass of the organization and/or eco-system (Organic Development)
• Increasing the capacity and speed of organizational intelligence
• Improving Involvement and Sharing Responsibility
• Can release talent (Removing barriers to participation and engagement)
What are some of the challenges with Collaboration?
Some of the top challenges experienced by organisations are as follows:
• Organisations fail to recognise that Collaboration is about human behaviours in the system. New software applications alone will not change inherent behaviours.
• Assumptions are made that Individuals/Teams/Organizations are sufficiently aligned that they will successfully partner and collaborate.
• Organisations fail to prepare an adequate business case and then track the business benefits for their Collaboration program.
• Managers fail to recognise and facilitate the fundamental changes in how an organisation works because of releasing talent through Collaboration.
• Business Processes & Protocols (e.g. Frameworks, Standards, Certifications) are not aligned and/or at a sufficient maturity level that collaborative practices can emerge or thrive.
• Choosing the right technology and deployment at the right time requires business, organisation development and technology skills to be embedded in the selection process.
• Organisations Manage Collaboration Technology adoption as IT projects rather than Organization Development projects.
• Interventions not aligned with Organisation Maturity.
What are the important Collaboration Capabilities that must be acquired and/or built?
Collaboration Maturity Dynamic Capabilities & their Construct Capabilities
Interpersonal
Interpersonal relates to the ability of individuals to communicate and interact and the related behaviours, practices, and relationships prior to, during and after the interactions. This Social Dynamic is most important as basis for co-operation, collaboration, and functioning as an organization, team & partnership. Interpersonal has 6 Construct Capabilities:
Trust
Trust is the basis of all relationships and most important in closer team and partner interaction.
Sharing of Aims
It is important for people interacting closely together to have roughly the same level of buy-in to what they are being asked to achieve.
Collective Responsibility
Ideal Collective Responsibility means everyone takes a lead in progressing and managing team affairs
Confidence in Competence of Others
Everyone should have confidence in the abilities of others to perform to their best for the Organization, Team, and/or Partnership
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution is considered to be a core competence in the area of managing trouble around competing interests that arises in relationships and projects. It is therefore a critical capability in Partnerships
Culture
Culture is the collective equivalent of mindset and determines how the collective behave in recognised patterns
Working
The activities that require mental or physical effort to deliver a result/output carried out by individuals and teams within and across organizations. Work includes the activities or tasks carried out by people or by machines and technology controlled by people. Work relates to what the people actually do. Working has 4 Construct Capabilities:
Autonomy
Distributed Autonomy to people, teams and collaborative initiatives is an important characteristic and level of flexibility that needs to be facilitated to as high a Level as possible among a workforce to optimize engagement in a Collaborative Partnership
Feedback
Feedback refers to how people receive and react to appreciation and advice in relation to themselves and their work
Goals
Goals are essential for an Organization & Teams to give direction and extend performance
Technology
Existing & Emerging Technologies can facilitate Collaboration within and across organizations that leads to high performance outcomes. ERP, Collaboration & Social Platforms and point solutions
Integration
Integration reflects the alignment of, and ability to, combine and collaborate by different individuals, team, and organizations. The depth of this combination will reflect the level of collaboration and power of any combination (Partnership)where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Interpersonal has 6 Construct Capabilities:
Boundaries
Boundaries are recognised as division lines within systems that limit communication, responsiveness, and growth
Business Processes
The details and sequence of each activity involved in the creation and delivery of the organisations Product or Service (Inputs, Outputs, Controls)
Communications
The standard of communications within teams and with the broader organization and marketplace is an important predictor of performance for Collaborative Partnerships
Communities
Communities are collaborative structures in which staff engage with sources of knowledge and insight from both within and outside the organization, including academics, customer forums, etc. Ideally, these connections guide strategy
Management Involvement
The degree of support from the levels of management for their teams is always important for the success of any Organization or Partnership.
Self-Organization
Collaboration is more effective as the Partner organizations become more organized by the people more directly involved in planning & executing the Partnership Aims.
Customer
The individuals and groups/organisations who influence, buy, use, or are impacted the organisations product and services. Customer has 4 Construct Capabilities:
Connectivity
The level of connections for any individual or team is influenced by the organisation policy, Process & Culture. Higher connectivity usually indicates higher Team and Organizational effectiveness.
Customer Intimacy
The greater the effective knowledge and awareness of customer situation (internal & external), needs, problems, etc., the greater the strategic value of the relationship towards product/service value going forward.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction is ultimately the key measure of sustainable effectiveness of an organization or a Team
Results
Ultimately the Customer determines how successful an organization is, and to some greater or lesser extent its partners. So, results achieved through customers impact an organization's results and the organization's standing in the sector and beyond
Partners
The 3rd party organizations who provide products, services and/or capabilities that complement our business and strengthen our value and value proposition. Partners has 5 Construct Capabilities
Partner Relationships
Generating an organization that has immediate appeal to potential partners in terms of the kinds of relationships that will develop between them is a critical success factor in the partnering marketplace
Product Fit
The quality of partner that your organization is appealing to, will be determined greatly by the capacity of your Product/Service to fit with theirs in an offering, or contributing to an offering to existing or potential customers.
Protocols
Standards, Policy, Procedures, Frameworks, and related certifications are important assets that facilitate effective collaborative partnership. These can be proprietary, Open, Regulatory, Industry, Technology etc.
Strategic Fit
Strategic Fit is a multi-dimensional requirement that potential Partners will examine. The more advanced your organization operates in terms of features, functions, quality, reliability, competence, resourcing, customer satisfaction, profitability, innovation, etc., the greater will be your appeal to more advanced Partners and ultimately the more important Customers for such Partnerships
Workspace
Workspace Capability (Including Digital Workspace) refers to all elements, resources, infrastructure, and processes of work that might be shared in a Collaborative Partnership
How strong is Collaboration Potential in our Organization/Team? (Assessment)
How ready are we for Building & Maintaining Collaborative Partnerships?
The answer to both questions can only be discovered through a scientifically based Assessment and Analysis of findings. The Organization Capability Maturity Framework OrgCMF™ and all its Reference Models including ‘The Collaborative Maturity Index (CMI24)’ are underpinned by Unitary Developmental Theory the most recently published deep peer reviewed theory on ‘How Human Systems Function & Develop’ applicable to Individuals, Teams, Organizations & Economies.
Each Reference Model, its individual Dynamic Capabilities, and their Construct Capabilities (The Elements) have comprehensive roadmaps for Development and definition of the Sates they can habituate (get stuck at). Based on a normative Maturity Scale and a set of rules we can easily Assess the habituated functioning states for all the elements and receive calibrated action guidance which assures sustainable traction for the recommended improvement actions.
We know from the research that effective Partnerships can only operate at Maturity Level 4 or above on the 7-level normative maturity scale and truly ‘Collaborative Partnerships’ only emerge at Level 5 and above on the 7-level scale.
Collaboration Maturity Assessment.
There are three Levels/Types of Assessment that can occur in any Assessment.
Sensor Assessment;
- this is a single question and the highest Model Level for collaboration and it can be used to signal, call to action, or take the temperature in a team or organization. It has limited diagnostic value
Triage Assessment;
- this is a single question for each of the 5 CMI24 Dynamic Capabilities that is often called Executive Assessment or Health Check. It can be used to identify priority areas for improvement and guide the assigned owner in their actions.
Diagnostic Assessment;
- This is a single question for each of the 25 CMI24 Construct Capabilities to guide teams and staff at all levels on the specific change and improvement actions based on the root causes of overall Collaboration functioning.
To Select, Configure or use these assessments organizations or teams can choose external independent 3rd party assessment or self-assessment.
The OrgCMF™ Assessment Builder and Assessment Platform provides the tool to engage all relevant stakeholders in the assessment program