Collaboration is the action of working with others to achieve a common purpose. That’s simple enough. “Aren’t we doing that all the time on projects” you might ask? The answer is most definitely yes. However, as projects grow in size and complexity, success increasingly depends on building a collaborative project system between individual organisations, a system that is distinguished by a best for project mindset.
With this in mind, we created the Project Collaboration Index (PCI) to measure and maximise the effectiveness of collaborative working relationships on projects - both within and across organisational boundaries. We focused on building a research based, accessible, and efficient leadership tool to guide decision making and generate critical project discussions.
The PCI measures project participants’ experience of working together and, importantly, how this impacts on achieving project goals.
The resulting data provides project leaders with a 360 degree view of collaborative strengths and challenges between and within project organisations, teams and departments.
Description
Is there an ease or an ongoing tension in the relationship style?
Are teams easy to get along with?
Is there a focus on building strong and trusting relationships?
Are relationships prioritised in interactions and decision making?
Do people respond quickly?
Is there recognition of the importance of speed in information flow?
Is there a shared ‘best for project’ mindset?
Do people understand how their work contributes to ‘the big picture’?
Do they appreciate how behaviour inevitably impacts other parts of the project that may seem ‘outside their scope’?
Is information transparently shared and provided?
Do organisations hold back data or information?
Is there fear in the system?
Is there a genuine one team approach?
Do leaders consciously and overtly prevent an ‘us’ and ’them’ mentality?
