One That Promotes Cross-Sector Collaboration is Communication and Transparency (Iteration# 2)
The big vision of the Collabolancer is: “Shaping the future of the gig economy by bringing back full power to the user!”. One of the powers that we want to return to is the power to complete a bigger job, that is the power of collaboration. However, with the diversity of the gig economy sectors, we must be able to identify what problems exist in collaborating, and what forms of collaboration are most universal, which can apply not only to certain sectors. For this reason, we validate ideas, validate users, and conduct a literature review, then put the result in this blog post. In the end, we will see how this validation and review have implications for the development of the Collabolancer!
3C Collaboration Model
Communication as an element of the 3C collaboration model plays a very important role communication as a means of exchanging information greatly determines the productivity and performance of the team
The 3C Collaboration Model, which consists of: Communication, Coordination, and Cooperation is a collaboration model that was first developed based on studies conducted by Ellis, CA, Gibbs, SJ, and Rein, G. L.[1]
At least potentially, collaboration can produce better results than individual work. A complementing of skills and individual efforts occur in a group. By collaborating, the members of the group receive feedback that early on permits them to identify inconsistencies and breakdowns in thinking processes and, together, they can seek ideas, information, and references to carry on their duties. The group also has more capacity to generate alternatives creatively, surveying the advantages and disadvantages of each one of them to select those that are feasible and to make decisions.
Furthermore, Robyn Keast explained the different concepts between Cooperation, Coordination, and Collaboration, as follows:[2]
Cooperation:
- Loose connections, low trust
- Tacit information sharing
- Ad hoc communication flows
- Independent goals
- Adapting to each other or accommodating others actions and goals
- Power remains with organizations
- Resources remain with the organization
- Commitment and accountability to own organization
- Relational timeframe short
- Low risk / low reward
Coordination:
- Medium connections, work-based trust
- Structured communication flows, formalized project-based information sharing
- Joint policies, programs, and aligned resources
- Semi-interdependent goals
- Power remains with parent organizations
- Commitment and accountability to parent organization and project
- Relational timeframe medium-based on prior projects
Collaboration:
- Dense interdependent connections, high trust
- Frequent communication
- Tactical information sharing
- System change
- Pooled, collective resources
- Negotiated shared goals
- Power is shared between organizations
- Commitment and accountability to the network first and community and parent organization
- Relational timeframe, long term (3 Years)
- High risk / High reward
Collaboration is a perfect form of communication, cooperation, and coordination elements, as Hao Zhong, et al. Explained that: “Collaboration Involves the functionalities of both coordination and cooperation, and refers to the sharing of information, resources, and responsibilities among entities to jointly plan, execute, and analyze the activities required to achieve individual and common goals.”[3]
Communication as an element of the 3C collaboration model plays a very important role communication as a means of exchanging information greatly determines the productivity and performance of the team. As the empirical analysis conducted by Christoph Riedl and Anita Williams Woolley related to field study on the impact of incentives and member skills on team performance, it shows: (1) a moderate effect for member skill and a weak effect for cash incentives on team performance; and, (2) large, positive effects of emergent collaboration on team performance, specifically related to the burstiness of team activities and information diversity, even when the effects of member skill and cash incentives are controlled.[4]
Transparency in Collaborating
We have known through validation and study in iteration # 1, that trust is a very important issue in carrying out a relationship in freelancing. Of course, in collaborating among interdependent team members, the issue of trust becomes increasingly complex. This is where transparency is needed! The basis for building the trust that workers are looking for is transparency![5]
Transparency allows teams to build trust which leads to an increase in employee engagement, and team security[6]. Oscar Berg, stated that the three Reasons Why Organizations Need to Increase Transparency, is: (1) Make Information Actionable; (2) Avoid Unnecessary Risk-Taking; and (3) Enable Sharing and Collaboration.[7]
Thus, to support a collaborative work environment and provide more benefits for teamwork, transparency including communication needs to be implemented and needs to be improved.
User Interview
To validate the above statement, we tried to conduct in-depth user interviews with prospective users, so that important points can be drawn for the development of Collabolancer in the future. The important points in this user interview can be grouped as follows:
Depending on the sector
“Again, I think everything depends on their respective industrial workflows. For my industry in architecture, where projects can take a very long time, and require field monitoring. Perhaps a tool that is more needed is remote-viewing to record reliable field progress.”
“For all fields, it is actually a good fit for Git for collaboration, but it is indeed widely used for software developers because when it comes to UI design use case, there are more specialized tools.”
“For use case in design, tools such as version control are not very suitable, because each one is not collaborating, but each is actually competing.”
Communication as an Important Element of Collaboration
“Maybe one that promotes collaboration the most for design, is the discussion.”
“So why do I say version control really depends on the case, version control can only be used if we have one thought and are in one frame, already have one office, a team has been formed. But if it’s a new person, like freelance, it’s different, right? The person is random, different places, even different countries, do not know each other, when the team is new, what is more important is the management and communication aspect, so that they don’t get divided.”
“I agree that communication is more important than tools like version control for collaboration.”
“An agnostic form of collaboration is actually a messenger. So far, my industry and marketing have been worked with just the Whatsapp Group for coordination. The important thing is that the rights and responsibilities are mutually agreed upon.”
“We Don’t use Drive / Slack / Trello / salesforce. Maybe the tools above can help increase efficiency by streamlining the Workflow, but the effectiveness is not yet known. And actually, for Autocad files, there is a version control itself called Vault, but we never use it.”
Clarity of Tasks
“In the case of freelancers, in working together, each responsibility must be clear”
“But what I might be able to suggest is that usually in the freelancer marketplace in general, the type of work has been divided into job units according to their fields, not per project. So that the employer has the flexibility to choose the price and quality of each component of the job. Whether this is an additional pain point, that must depend on the scale of the project and the position of the employer.”
Ownership in Collaborate
“As for ownership, it should belong to the team, because he works as a team, right, he dedicates his work to the team and to the project. Especially if all teams know and agree, then there is no problem. It just needs to be clear who contributed what, but overall it is a joint effort.”
What are the implications for Collabolancer?
Above user Interviews and literature studies have finally opened our horizons about what collaboration means, and how to achieve it. Regarding the results of these studies, We have the following thoughts:
- We at first, thought that the key to collaborating was in version control systems, such as git. However, it turns out that what is far more essential in collaboration and can be applied to any sector of freelancing, is the communication itself. Thus, We committed to improving the collaboration mechanism by implementing a more integrated communication and managerial system.
- The nature of blockchain is immutability, so the data in it is very difficult to change. We think that applying transparency to the team communication system that is integrated with the blockchain, in general, will also improve Solver’s ability to provide a more objective dispute assessment, because the information is more actionable. Therefore, we also want to implement transparent communication on the project scope.
- To increase collaboration where there is an interdependent relationship between all the parties, we thought to be able to implement community-based worker vetting by Solver to increase trust in workers and can expand collaborative relationships between solvers and workers.
These thoughts are certainly initial thoughts, which we will examine further!
Closing
Through this validation and study, we can understand that the freelancing industry is a multi-sector industry, and each sector has its own characteristics that may make the pattern of collaboration different. However, the form of collaboration that can always be applied to all sectors, as well as the most essential forms, is communication and transparency.
We would like to thank users who are willing to share their thoughts and are willing to spend their time in this validation session. Through these inputs, Collabolancer will continue to improve the product iteratively, so that it can become the most collaborative freelancing platform ever!
Reference
[1] H. Fuks, A. B. Raposo, & M.A Gerosa, “Engineering Groupware for E-Business”, 1st Seminar on Advanced Research in Electronic Business (EBR’2002), 7 a 8, 2002, Rio de Janeiro, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228813941_Engineering_Groupware_for_E-Business
[2] https://medium.com/org-hacking/cooperation-coordination-collaboration-keast-66614a7ddf8a
[3] Hao Zhong, dkk, “Collaborative Intelligence — Definition And Measured Impacts On Internetworked E-work”, Management and Production Engineering Review, Volume 6, Number 1, 2015, page 68, https://doi.org/10.1515/mper-2015-0009
[4] Christoph Riedl and Anita Williams Woolley, “Teams vs. Crowds: A Field Test of the Relative Contribution of Incentives, Member Ability, and Emergent Collaboration to Crowd-Based Problem Solving Performance”, Academy of Management Discoveries Vol. 3, №4, 2016, page 31, https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2015.0097
[5] https://blogin.co/blog/transparent-team-communication-why-and-how-to-embrace-it-69/
Collabolancer is a blockchain-based freelancer marketplace that more profitable, trustworthy and collaborative
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