DailyPost 960
COLOCATION MEANS COLLABORATION?
Colocation has been seen as the panacea to the issues arising out different locations of the development team and the location of the owner, the site of operation. In the age of large number of enterprises working on the same project, colocation has been a desirable. Sharing the same physical space would bring about camaraderie and bonding and that would be the ideal behavioural and professional trait in the age of integration. Unfortunately, the gains of colocation is not at all visible in majority of the projects. Might be it may still take some time to make it happen.
With colocation happening both the vendor and client seem to have achieved the first major milestone. In the body shopping industry it also means less heads to cater for at vendor location, the daily physical overheads taken care of. Collaboration is a stage of mind, an attitude, a professional approach of working together, merging one enterprise’s entity to some degree for accomplishing the project goals, higher levels of transparency, operational work being conducted on trust, understanding and oral communication as well, taking additional responsibilities, ironing out technical and professional differences to name a few.
How many of us think of colocation on these lines? The communication lines give a very clear picture of the nature of collaboration. The reporting structure remains exactly the same as that of different teams working from different locations. The bosses and powers that be also supervise, monitor or guide as if it is a non-colocated project. Emails run thick and fast between the colocated entities, meaningless in that environment. Seamless project execution has never been the thought process, showing that you have worked is important.
With all stakeholders ensconced comfortably, including the Project Monitoring Unit, the most harrowing time is that of the owner of the Project. The gaps so meticulously created by most of these co-locators cannot be ironed out by the owner as the purpose is making more and more money. Nobody is ready to take the responsibility. Given it’s importance in Project success, colocation has to be taught in B Schools.
COLOCATION OF PROFESSIONAL MINDS CAN ONLY LEAD TO COLLABORATION.
Sanjay Sahay