Following is the discussion made on my friend, Lamia's blog post.

Excellent post. Well, I'm not sure what Public sector can learn from Private sector but to tell you the truth, every organization whether it's connected to multiple other organizations or an individual enterprise with set of employee units in itself, inner-political issues never decrease. It's not about just the Moroccan agency you work for, it's almost same every where around the world. I've worked in multinational firms and organizational politics is the biggest issue, if you visualize a broader view of how everything is connected to organizational politics, it is the main aspect of all the things you listed, and it gets harder and harder when the number of employees are really big. Official work environment should neither be too formal and neither me too friendly, it should lay somewhere in between.

There's an issue in private sector I would like to highlight here; as you mentioned that every individual gets a different idea, organizational structures (administration etc.) doesn't usually allow individuals to grow and share their knowledge, creativity or ideas with their organization, reasons could be many, financial issues, political issues, personal matters so and forth. That's why every organization must have a global white board policy, let's say for instance; a big white board on which every individual can write up their ideas and at the end of the day there can be some kind of quick review of the creative ideas shared.

And regarding collaboration, collaboration platforms, intranets and all the software application, ERPs, knowledge based systems, DSSs etc. depend on few of the following aspects:

1. A specialized team who would study, audit, and then issue an official statement regarding the benefits of a particular software application, instead of blinding buying ERP solution from a cousin or a friend's friend, moral relationships should stay away in such decisions, because you work in governmental agency, I know this thing happens a lot, that if one department's manager is from family A, he will hire all the people from family A. Happens a lot. This should be completely eliminated from our systems, as long as they hire only those who are eligible for the job description.

2. Finance. If financially an organization has no issues, then everyone will think of their personal benefits as mention in point 1. Thus finance department or purchase department should outsource the inspection of selected software application to another audit firm or hire someone totally not in mutual connection with the team mentioned in point 1.

3. Knowledge workers (whom in my language I call, the end-users), the knowledge workers are the real people who would actually interact with the system being developed or bought. Thus it is solely important that they are kept on highest priority and they are being indulge in selection of the proprietary software buying or development.

4. The highest management. At the end of the day, whatever the higher management wishes, only that happens. The owners or the upper most administration authority should personally check what's going on at the lower end. And everything should be monitored properly.

Technology & time can never stop, they're increasing at the highest pace of life possible on this planet. Thus it's also important to take care of what things are beneficial and what things are not, creating a defective robot can screw up your own workshop.

Good posts Lamia! I love the way you express your thoughts. One of my favorite blogs!

P.S. I'm sorry if anyone is feeling offensive regarding this comment. These are just my way of looking at things. Cheers.

Further Discussion:

It was a pleasure, thanks for your kind words. If you analyze any random company who is on national level, you'll see there are many procedures which are totally not required but they exist due to human psychic. Transparency is a serious issue with all of us, right now we're talking about our work places, this really reflect the higher level situation of countries, when one employee is lazy and not motivated, he says, "Oh man, relax, everything is ok, I'm getting paid at the end of this month & work is all same as it used to be." Now this employee doesn't need any change in the company. I'll give you my own example, I worked in one of the biggest real estate company for an year, you know it, when I resigned, the first thing company's CEO asked me was, "What went wrong? We pay you on time, we'll pay you more, we'll provide everything you need, just don't leave the company like this." And I replied with another question, "Sir, it's been one year since I joined this company, company neither went further, neither went back, it's still in a vacuum, I can't stay in this company anymore, my brain is rusting, thus it's my personal decision that I should leave." Of course they got surprised when he had to repeat my words in the board meeting, regardless of the talk, my point is, that me and you, we think that collaboration is important as much as other things in an organization, but do others care about it equally? No. Majority doesn't care.

I would like to tell you something I always believed on Lamia; we're living in communication era, where 140 characters can speak louder than any voice on this planet, only that person is successful, who love team work, who asks for collaboration between teams, who asks for enough transparency, if I make you sit on a high position in a company where no one bothers to help you or work with you, you'll get sick of that place, even if you're getting too much money.

Regarding procedures, every company should upgrade their working procedures, procedure calls, I say it should be done every month or at least every 6 month if the organization is too big. Upgrading and polishing your work procedure is very effective. I'll give you an example here, there's a company where there are many departments, some departments work individually and some need collaboration with other departments to produce the end results. Sales guy get's interactive with the client, client defines his issues or requirements, sales guy come back to Pre-Sales Engineer and discuss the issues, Pre-Sales then place a short mock-up meeting with Division Manager and rest of the team, then they finalize their offer, after 72 hours, Pre-Sales talk to the Sales person, Sales person talks to the client. Long procedure? 72 hours is a fail?

Now this is how you enhance your procedures; instead of keeping Pre-Sales and Sales guys separate, place them in the same work space where Division Manager sits, IPT solution? CRM? Accounting? Great! Sales guy use the CRM, Pre-Sales look at the CRM in real time, Manager sees it too, Manager recommends, Pre-Sales & Sales understand the situation, offer is made at the same time in maximum 2 hours the proposal is sent to the client and a call is also made for further discussion.

See? 72 hours and 2 hours have almost 70 hours of difference. In one minute anything can happen and you're working in a 72 hours work procedure.

So, my point is, everything depends on the people! People work together and achieve better! Proper use of technology is super-effective!

- Faisal Asif