The Collaborative Organization: How to Make Employee Networks Really Work Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

As information technology becomes more and more important in large, global organizations, CIOs are held to higher standards. In addition to streamlining business processes, reducing enterprise costs and improving the efficiency of labor, top management also wants the IT department as a strategic business partner to predict the business impact of new technologies, to develop new IT products and services, and drive the implementation of innovative technologies that differentiate the organization from competitors. Although organizational charts and standardized processes can be useful, the authors believe that these traditional tools are not flexible enough to support the types of internal and external collaboration and partnership, which are large, global IT organizations need to maximize value. The key to the delivery and operational excellence and innovation, they argue, to innovative solutions suddenly appear through informal and unplanned interaction between people who see the problem from different points of view. Based on their research at Monsanto and 11 other major companies, the authors argue that CIOs learn to balance the formal and informal structures can create global IT organizations, which are more efficient and innovative than organizations that rely primarily on formal mechanisms . The authors found that the organizational network analysis provides useful methodology to help managers evaluate the broad model of informal networks among individuals, groups, functions and organizations, and to identify measures to bring the target network with strategic imperatives. "Hide
by Rob Cross, Peter H. Gray, Shirley Cunningham, all rain, Robert J. Thomas Source: MIT Sloan Management Review 10 pages. Publication Date: 01 Oct 2010. Prod. #: SMR367-PDF-ENG

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