Taken from: http://goo.gl/XXmJGc%5B/caption%5D

I was at a meeting in Washington DC organized by CLIR. CIOs from liberal arts colleges with merged Library/IT organizations are members of CLIR and meet twice a year. This time around, we included senior managers from each of our institutions also. One of the topics we discussed was “Sharing and Collaboration”.

As I have written before, collaboration is very hard and the types of collaborations we take pride in and celebrate are the so-called “low hanging fruits”. The real ones we have been discussing for long time, such as sharing services and staff simply remains unattainable. So, I thought I will share with you my analysis of factors that contribute to a successful collaboration.

Statement of the problem

Collaboration involves participation by several parties. Unless the problem we are trying to solve through the collaboration is clearly defined and agreed to by all participants, it will be dead on arrival. More often than not, we start from a solution and seek the problem (I know, I know, another one of my pet peeves). The solution to the problem we are collectively trying to solve should result in a tangible result with good return on investment. I believe that it is much easier when everyone collaborating is aligned and none of them have found a solution yet!

A few colleges, none of whom had an information security officer, have come together to hire a shared information security officer. This is great – it was a clearly stated problem for all collaborators who can point to things that are now getting done (such as security education). Wanting to share GIS specialists has not really happened because it is not so well defined. In this case, it is not that everyone wants to pool funds to hire a new GIS specialist, but “share” existing ones. Exactly how the sharing will take place is not well defined because those who have them see those specialist already fully occupied.

Balance

In my mind, this is one of the most important factor that determines whether a collaboration is a success or not. If there is even a slight perception of imbalance, you can kiss the collaboration a goodbye. At the recent CLIR meeting, there were several such imbalances that were pointed out – an institution with more endowment is viewed as more resource rich and a perception that they need to have more of a say on the collaboration. Though this is true, I always remind people that the larger endowment doesn’t necessarily translate to more resources because it is far more complicated. Similarly, perceived or real dominance by one or a small group of people will tilt the balance adversely. The same applies to decision making. Successful stories of collaborative decision making when the stakes are high is pretty rare.

Turnover

Substantive collaborations take time. Unless the commitment to such collaborations can be sustained, it is again bound to fail. With the ever increasing rate of turnover in administrations of Higher Ed, this is a serious issue. In general, collaborations require resources and someone with authority will have to sign off. If such folks move on, the new person(s) may not feel the need to commit to the collaborations the same way and this can jeopardize the agreement. Staff involved in such collaborations from institutions where there are such changes will be wondering about the future that they may slow down progress. Getting a commitment where the penalty for getting out can be severe can act as a deterrent.

Staff Buy-in

It is extremely important that any conversations around collaborations involve and include key staff members whose lives will be affected by them. Depending on the nature of the collaborations, the leaders should be prepared to answer questions ranging from  “Does this mean my workload is going to increase?” to “This looks like I may not have my job at the end of this collaboration”. Being transparent and articulating the purpose of collaborations become essential.

There are indeed several other factors, but you can get an idea from this why it is such a complicated business. I would say governance is an important aspect of this, but I have already written too much, so I will pass on that.

If you look at some of the successful collaborations, you can understand why they work. One example is the Boston Library Consortium. The purpose of this consortium, which was begun in 1970, is clearly articulated here.  Resource sharing and consortial collecting are stated as two goals of collaboration goals. As members of the BLC, we tremendously benefit from this. Each of the members have clear advantages they can point to – consortial pricing, interlibrary loans etc to which a value can be attached and clearly seen. Though the types of institutions and the criteria for balance may not work in this case, it is offset by the benefits one derives. The long term commitments from the institutions protect the consortium from too many turnovers  and staff in general enjoy the platform it provides for networking and other collaborations. In other words it is not seen as a threat. I am sure that there are many successful initiatives and I am willing to bet that their success is rooted in paying attention to the ingredients I mentioned above.

I think we should look at both the successful and failed collaborations to learn what are the chances for an idea for collaboration that has a chance of success. Based on that we should have to courage to move forward or drop it if doesn’t look realistic. There are many different ways in which we can share resources and derive enormous efficiencies and financial benefits. But other factors such as balance, staff morale and inability to commit to a long term agreement come in the way.

Here is a somewhat similar view on this matter with a few additional things. And one more.