October
2009 – For a new study titled « Building the Future of Collaboration »,
FORRESTER interviewed 3700 knowledge workers in the U.S. and in Europe to learn
about their collaboration habits and their needs for improvement, leading to informative
findings and a stunning conclusion.
The first
finding is a strong intensification of
remote collaboration in knowledge work on both continents. 80% of
respondents collaborate every month with colleagues in remote locations and 67%
with partners from other companies.
The second
finding is that only one computer-based collaboration
tool stands out and supports 77% of this collaborative work: e-mail. Other asynchronous
collaboration tools (collaboration portals, discussion forums) come far behind (17%),
but are still way better adopted than “Web 2.0” tools (Wikis, Blogs, Social
networks) that don’t yet pass the 5% mark.
Will this
change? Probably, but maybe not the way one would expect: a third finding is
that professionals want improvements,
but no radical change. They would rather keep the same tools and eliminate
their most painful downsides: miscommunication, scattered files and delays
awaiting replies from others. The most often cited areas for improvement are
speed and efficiency of collaboration (68%) and the fluidity of the exchange of
information and ideas (62%).
In summary,
FORRESTER writes, “respondents hope
tomorrow will be similar, but better”.
FORRESTER concludes
the study by reckoning that knowledge workers still heavily rely on the e-mail
and the telephone to collaborate, but that these tools don’t entirely satisfy
their needs. There is interest for new improved methods for collaboration, but as
the slow adoption rate of Web 2.0 technologies confirms, workers are not ready
to radically change the way they work.
FORRESTER recommends that
“enterprise IT promotes more effective
collaboration that supports and improves existing email-based collaborative
behavior while also facilitating the adoption of new and more efficient
tools”.
