The global economy demand new ways to collaborate within and across companies and across national, cultural and linguistic boundaries.

The outlet of collaboration tools for the Internet is huge and the vendors’ approach to collaboration is often more technical and focused on the richness of features rather than the organizational role of cross site collaboration. To choose the best tool one should consider the nature of the collaboration and find the tool that works best in a certain setting. There is no tool that is suitable for every possible collaborating situation. The setting for collaboration within a group should be crucial when choosing the tool.

A traditional way to collaborate is the asynchronous way where the participants don’t meet to carry out the task. Colleagues do part of the task in a sequence, one after another. The group is responsible for the result, and it is possible for one person to compensate for another person doing slight work. This approach is most suitable for routine work where both task and results are very predictable. When communication within the group is needed, email, instant messaging, fax or telephone is used to clear up issues.

Often people used to routine work continue to do work in this way though a more simultaneous collaborative mode could give a better result. Hierarchical organizations in traditional industries often continue to work this way and thereby loose competitive power. It is a paradox that groups like those described above often are near each other without taking advantage of more effective collaborations methods.

In other areas simultaneous work with predefined patterns is a better approach. Each participant has a predefined role with known tasks to perform. Immediate and accurate coordination and a certain degree of specialization are necessary. Each task performed is predictable, and each participant knows when to act. An example is a cross department meeting to make decisions upon an investigated issue where all participants have specialized knowledge important to the decision making.

Simultaneous work with no predefined patterns often occur in creative processes where two or more persons work together to create a result. Immediate and accurate coordination is necessary, and all participants can act on each other’s moves and bring new aspects into the scene. The overall result is based on each participant’s knowledge, experience and imagination and everybody can take part regardless of his or her role.

Cross department teams in flat organizations can carry out very complex and innovative projects where continuous collaboration is necessary. Tasks are often carried out simultaneously among the group members, and frequent ad hoc meetings are necessary to coordinate and correct each other’s performance. The quality of the work is often dependent on how quickly the whole group or part of the group can make decisions to meet deadlines.