Today was the anniversary of the fateful Apollo 13 flight. NBC’s show DateLine had a great special on the real story today. If you can find the full episode, I highly recommend it.
At one point in the interview, Matt Lauer asks Gene Kranz if he was at all concerned that the astronauts simply could not perform the tasks that were required of them. Cold, dehydrated, tired, hungry, 200,000 miles from Earth and performing beyond any imagineable limits of human endeavor, weren’t Gene and others at Mission Control worried that simple human error would cause another disastrous mistake up in space? He replied simply that no, the relationships were such that you didn’t even consider that. There was that much of a level of trust.
Trust is the important element. I started work on a paper back in 2003 proposing a business model for collaboration. That is, how do you figure out the right technology is right for a given business context? What’s best for colleagues of equal status and similar expertise but separated by timezones? What is most helpful between counterparties on a complex transaction, where they have not worked together before, but where they similarly cannot meet face to face? We think we know the answers to these implicitly, but do we? Research I’d done before then showed that that was not always the case. In one particular situation we’d set up high-fidelity video conferencing links between our clients and their account managers internally, and after the initial novelty usage trailed almost completely off. Why?
My proposal, back in 2003 and still today, is that collaboration consists of three distinct elements:
- The sharing of knowledge
- The division of duties
- Trust
… and that this is true for all human collaboration. The exchange of information and knowledge is what is the genesis and foundation of collaboration in the first place. Without some work out put, and hence a division of duties, it’s not collaboration – it’s just talking. And lastly – you must trust the other party and they must trust you. Trust in the accuracy, completeness and relevance of the information. Trust that you are each going to do the work agreed.
Every business relationship can be defined on each of these three axes. Further, these variables will change with time and circumstance. So, how does this relate to technology? A couple of examples:
- Some relationships, or situations, require detailed exchange of quantitative and high-precision data. For these, verbally sharing that data over a video or telephone conferencing link would be both inefficient and vulnerable to error. Email, team-based engineering tools, or even (yes) chat would be more appropriate.
- On the other hand, what about a new account management relationship? In this case, the technology should help to establish and grow trust between the parties. Where in-person meetings aren’t possible, go with secure, high-quality video conferencing.
Again, how do we use this business model to effect technology decisions? Take the second example above. Video conferencing is often more expensive than, for example, chat. Especially if pervasive, of high definition and employing robust security. As time goes by in the relationship, the parties know each other better and have established levels of rapport and trust. Perhaps more collaboration-supporting communications would then move from video conferencing to phone, email or chat. All of which are likely less expensive than video conferencing solutions/services.
The technologies available since Apollo 13 have of course evolved dramatically. However, the events of that mission so well highlight the importance of trust in collaboration relationships that I couldn’t miss the chance to write about it.
I will be taking the PMP exam soon, so energies are focused there at the moment. However, I’ve promised myself I’ll finally write up and publish the business model stuff. So, more to come.
Cheers,
Eric
PS, couple great books: Lost Moon, and Failure is Not An Option
