Collaboration as a Process

In the product development community, collaboration is an emerging concept and can be thought about as a process. Collaboration appears in Product Manager’s blogs, in product development books and journals as well as the topic of many product development seminars.  Collaboration and collaborative relationship should not be mistaken for the 90’s buzzword, partnership. In product development, collaboration is being conceptualized as a process that is embodied by three main components:

First, to help understand collaboration, it is helpful to consider what it is not collaboration. For distinction, collaboration is not a partnership. Partnerships focus on transactional relationships. To simplify the concept, a partnership implies transactions from one party to another, such as a legally binding relationship where documents are signed for the delivery of products and services for the exchange of money. Collaboration is an idea sharing process where business needs, information and knowledge are willingly contributed and problem solving begins.

To move from partnership thinking to collaboration, we can view collaboration as a process where we focus our energies on one component of the process at a time, then widen our perspective back to the concept of collaboration. The first step in the collaborative process is creating client-centered dialogue.

Creating client-centered dialogue requires the development of an open and trusting environment. Creating this environment requires a shift in our context or paradigm from “me” or “my” to “you” and “ours,” and most importantly that of the end user. We shift from an internal paradigm: “Let me tell you about me and my products, my services…,” to focusing on our customers paradigm by asking, “What are your goals for your products and services? What types of challenges are you facing? What needs are being left unfulfilled?"

When we collaborate, we intentionally shift our thinking to that of our clients wants, needs and desires. We then are free to ask open-ended questions, actively listen and brainstorm ideas. Through shifting our paradigm, we change our dialogue and we begin the collaborative process.

Creating client-centered dialogue allows opportunities for the free flow of information, thereby, true business and end-user's needs can be uncovered.  When we discover these true needs (or gaps), a different opportunity presents itself, the opportunity to innovate! Thereby, we create a unique and differentiated value for the end-user. Additionally, the intentional focus on collaboration can be purposed to lowering overall unit prices, quickening response times, and lowering inventory levels while enhancing the end users’ experience with our products and services. 

In the first essential step in collaborating, we are initiating client-centered dialogue to begin achieving an opportunity to create an exceptional value for the client(s). To continue the value creation in the collaborative process, it is necessary to analyze and determine how to synchronize with client systems.

Stay tuned for my next blog, where I will discuss my methods on how organizations can synchronize systems to deliver exceptional value to clients.

Welcome to the new ASAP site blog. We've redesigned the web site to better serve you. Our frequent blogs will be updated with current information and tips about assembly services and packaging.

Enjoy!

By Randy Hanson
rhanson@rivertowns.net

When Sara Taylor-Niemann turned over her production facility to making ‘bundles of love’ for a day in October of 2008, she didn’t know how much love she was giving.

“This is the biggest one-day event we’ve had from any company in the whole time that we’ve been around,” said Teresa Wilts, North Metro work coordinator for Bundles of Love.

Bundles of Love is an all-volunteer organization that sends needy mothers of newborns home from the hospital with a pack of 25 items that they will need to care for their babies – blankets, sleepers, bibs, diaper bags and more.

Taylor-Niemann is owner and president of Assembly Services And Packaging Inc., a small company in the town of Hudson that usually puts together and packages things for customers like 3M Co., Target, Imation and PUR Water Filtration Systems.

ASAP started in 1995 with a staff of six in a rented facility next to the Hudson Sports & Civic Center. The company moved to a building at 579 Schommer Drive in the town of Hudson in January 2007.

It now employs about 20 production workers and does contract assembly and packaging work for some 150 corporations worldwide.

Early this year, when Taylor-Niemann was looking for a charity to aid as part of a Corporate Citizenship Day, her sister-in-law steered her to Bundles of Love.

On Friday, Oct. 24, ASAP suspended its regular production and went to work cutting and sewing baby blankets, newborn gowns, bibs and burp cloths – and butting snaps on sleepers and bibs.

Six ASAP managers and 14 production employees participated, along with three members of a First Presbyterian Church sewing group and other community volunteers.

In all, 236 work hours were donated to cut and sew 274 blankets, 223 burp cloths, 42 newborn gowns, 30 bibs and six sleepers. Snaps were put in a month’s supply of sleepers.

ASAP also donated an industrial sewing machine to Bundles of Love, along with $845 that the company collected from business associates.

“Our volunteers were amazed by just how many receiving blankets were finished, never mind all the other stuff. It’s hard for me to describe how much we appreciate what you’ve done for us,” Wilts wrote to Taylor-Niemann in an email following the event.

The need is real
Asked how serious the need is for the services of Bundles of Love, Wilts answered: “Oh, boy. When I started with this group that’s what I thought, too.”

Living in the comfortable suburb of Mounds View, Minn., she doesn’t see much poverty, Wilts said.

“But boy what a nasty surprise I got when I started working with this group and finding out what it’s really like.”

Wilts told the story of a pregnant woman so malnourished that a doctor gave her nutrients in IV bags to take with her. She was living in a car, so she would hang the IV bag from the rearview mirror.

“These are not isolated stories,” Wilts said. “The poverty that we have here, that don’t even know about and don’t see, is just terrible. We have groups on our waiting list because we don’t have enough volunteers or enough cash to make as many bundles as we really need.”

Bundles of Love was founded in 1999 by Mary Jo Prinsen of Apple Valley, Minn., who got the idea of using her hobby of sewing to help impoverished babies and mothers that she had learned about through the Internet.

The charity now has hundreds of volunteers who supply close to 50 clinics, hospitals and social service agencies with free bundles of infant supplies.

Presbyterian sewing group
The women’s sewing group at First Presbyterian Church of Hudson has been purchasing fabric and sewing items for Bundles of Love for two years.

The sewing group meets from 9 a.m. to noon the first and third Tuesday of each month in the fellowship hall of the church at 1901 Vine St.

Georgia Whitcomb, a regular with the sewing group, learned that ASAP was planning a workday fro Bundles of Love through her husband, Dick, who is active in the Hudson Area Chamber of Commerce.

Whitcomb offered to join the ASAP crew and was welcomed, along with fellow sewing group members Renee Snow and Sharon Schweitzer.

“It turned out to be just a delightful experience for us,” Whitcomb said. “We thought we were only going to stay about four hours. We ended up staying about six because we were having such a good time.”

ASAP provided the workers with a catered lunch from Kaladi’s delicatessen, 3250 Heiser St.

Whitcomb said Wilts brought between 12 and 18 serger sewing machines for the workers to use.

“It was a major effort for her to bring all that stuff out,” Whitcomb added.

You can learn more about Bundles of Love at www.bundlesoflove.org, and about Assembly Services And Packaging, Inc. at www.asapwi.com.