Data Driven Issue 04
FOR ANY ORGANIZATION, THE MOST MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATIONS AND COLLABORATION HAPPENS NOT
WHEN THESE TOOLS ARE DEPLOYED AS STAND-ALONE TECHNOLOGIES, BUT WHEN THEY ARE BLENDED
INTO PROCESSES, ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
MEASURING THE IMPACT
OF COLLABORATION
IN TENTHS-OF-A-SECOND
Most businesses talk about teamwork, collaboration and
real-time communications. But just because employees
send and receive instant messages doesn’t mean their
work processes are more efficient. A document-sharing
site alone doesn’t mean a team improves the way it
works together. Business agility isn’t achieved simply by
setting progressive collaboration policies at work.
So how do companies know they’re actually fostering great
teamwork – and that it’s making a real impact on their business?
Game-changing teamwork takes place when
organizations automate and embed innovative
communications and collaboration technologies
throughout their business processes.
One organization implemented this type of approach,
and measures the impact of improved teamwork in
tenths of a second: Lotus F1 Team.
If the designers, engineers, technicians and drivers
who make up Lotus F1 Team can work together to save
valuable seconds in a race, it can mean the difference
between winning and finishing with the rest of the pack.
010
Lotus F1 Team partnered with Avanade evolve
how the team develops innovative concepts into a
winning F1 car. Each step in this development – from
computer simulations to wind-tunnel testing to
data-driven performance feedback to race-day results
– involves different teams setting objectives, sharing
knowledge and communicating metrics. It is a complex
communications and collaboration challenge. With
fast and efficient communications between a designer
building a computer model and an engineer testing
it in a wind tunnel, an extra cycle of work among
these groups could save tenths of a second each race –
enough to meaningfully improve results.
So, Lotus F1 Team and Avanade looked across the
lifecycle of F1 car development to find ways to improve
communication and increase efficiencies through
the business process. For any organization, the most
meaningful communications and collaboration happens
not when these tools are deployed as stand-alone
technologies, but when they are blended into processes,
roles and responsibilities.