Collaboration considerations

As an individual contributor in my workplace, I hardly get a chance to collaborate with others in person. But I do need to communicate with some widely dispersed subject matter experts on my project team, as well as my out-of-state project sponsor.

What are my options for creating a collaborative workspace for a distributed project team on a limited budget?

My team needs a way to communicate from decentralized locations, and a way to share, organize and edit files across multiple computers at the same time. This goal can be accomplish by using collaborative software to create a community workspace. Suitable groupware options include both open-source software and proprietary software.

Here’s what I learned about collaborative systems:

Groove.net markets its products to the public sector, offering both hosted and installation options. For $69 per user, the Virtual Office File Sharing edition provides basic tools for secure file sharing and discussions, and other features like a calendar, links and notepad. More robust versions include features to manage meetings and projects and to track data and processes. All document changes are stored locally on the users PC, and synchronized over the internet upon connection through a browser.

I looked briefly at IBM – there are two versions of Lotus Notes. One for instant messaging and one for collaboration. Like Groove, both products tout security features.

Next, I check out Intranets.com They offer a suite of integrated applications, with a special pricing plan for non-profit groups. For $49.95/mo for 10 members, you get 250 MB storage, a document manager, online calendar, scheduling, a task manager, database, discussion forums, and announcement features. Web and audio conferencing have extra fees.

Finally, I checked out the WikiWikiWeb – the official name of all things Wiki. A wiki is a collaborative hypertext environment with an emphasis on easy access to modifiable information. The advantage of this “open-editing” feature is that non-technical users can easily compose content. Otherwise, the wiki environment appears to need a ‘Wiki Master’ to organize it. I saw several public wiki communities that looked pretty barren. On the opposite end of the spectrum, enterprise users enable passwords and security features to create private intranets that serve as knowledge and communication management systems.

After all this research, I see the benefits of a collaborative system. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I decide to do about it.