Collaboration Index

Organisations collaborate for many purposes and in many different ways. Socia classifies the nature of a collaborative relationship along a spectrum from:

• purely transactional relationship – such as typical customer supplier relationship where characteristically:
  • there is a low degree of interdependence between the parties
  • requirements are well specified
  • parties don’t need to spend much time together
• to a symbiotic relationship – which is much like a traditional high performance team – here:
  • the parties are close and bound together by common purpose and common values
  • requirements emerge over time and are difficult to specify
  • there is a lot of loyalty to the group and parties spend a lot of time together

In the middle of this spectrum of collaboration sit partnering relationships – which are characterized by a degree of mutuality and interdependence and all parties see significant opportunities for future value in the partnership that none could realize by working alone.

Partnering is a distinctly different sort of relationship to teaming and to customer/supplier management. Effective partnering requires; the right contracts and governance, the right operations – processes and systems, the right individual and group behaviours.

Socia have developed a Collaboration Index Questionnaire to help partners to jointly discover where their relationship sits on the Collaboration Spectrum – and what the direction of travel needs to be for the partnership to thrive. Please contact us if you would like to find out more about the CI questionnaire.