Book 1

"Finally, a book that goes beyond the 'how-to' of team building and answers the critical question, 'How do I create a collaborative organization that reaps the harvest of long-term investment in teams?' The 'ten principles of collaborative organizations' outlined in this book are invaluable."
-- Seth McCutcheon, CEO, Domicile Design Group LLC

The flagship book for the new Collaborative Work Systems Series, Beyond Teams provides an overview of this growing field, defines the basic principles, and points the direction toward a series of books. You'll find a framework designed to help you understand the potential and the means of achieving it throughout the key functions of business.

Guiding the Journey to Collaborative Work Systems is a hands-on, practical guide for dealing with the challenges of designing and implementing collaboration in the workplace. People working in groups and teams, team-based organizations and networked organizations, and value chains and strategic alliances understand that effective collaboration is mandatory for success in today's business environment. Change leaders— such as organization development managers, steering committee members, design team members, line managers, and others— will find this workbook an invaluable source of help, as it provides a step-by-step planning process to transform an organization to better support collaboration. Teams and groups can use the workbook to improve their collaborative processes, and elements of the workbook can be applied to a wide variety of situations where collaboration is needed.

The workbook covers a broad range of topics necessary for successful change, including generating and maintaining support for the initiative, launching a thoroughly planned change program, and effectively communicating the plan to the rest of the organization. Filled with assessments, tools, and activities, and based on interviews conducted with twenty-one experts and hundreds of team members, Guiding the Journey to Collaborative Work Systems offers the support needed to design in-depth plans for changing work systems to facilitate collaborative excellence.