Global

  • Collaboration on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner

    I’m glad to see that Design News published an article in its May 15 issue about how global collaboration is making a difference for Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner project. You can read the article here. The article even includes a photo taken for The Culture of Collaboration book of Boeing’s Global Collaboration Center in Everett, Washington.

    The Design News article provides useful insight into how Boeing uses Dassault Systemes’ product lifecycle management tools including Catia, version 5. In the book, I describe the interplay of tools, environment, and culture in Boeing’s global collaborative enterprise (GCE) and delineate three levels of collaboration at Boeing. The book also explains how Boeing maximizes mirror zones (see my March 16 post).

    Incidentally, the book defines the global collaborative enterprise (GCE) as a collection of interdependent companies that engage in shared creation of value, often in real time. Boeing is an excellent example of a GCE in that Boeing and its global partners work together seamlessly as if there were no geographical boundaries. But there’s an automobile company that is also setting the standard for GCE’s. Can you guess which company?

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  • Collaboration Across Time Zones

    The blogosphere is abuzz with comments about The Daily Telegraph’s editorial that we should eliminate time zones in favor of a single “Global Time.”

    Since the Telegraph is a British newspaper, Global Time means Greenwich Mean Time. The argument in favor of Global Time is that it’s simple and that New Yorkers will get used to the alarm clock going off at what is currently 11 p.m. EDT.

    While a single time zone could solve some problems, it would undoubtedly create other issues—like choosing the time zone that would become Global Time. Another issue is that highly-collaborative companies leverage mirror zones (see my March 16 post) for 24-hour product and service design and development. Shifting to a single time zone would compromise that business model.

    The discussion about time zones points up an issue that plagues many organizations. I have worked with global companies that expect the rest of the world to adopt headquarters-driven, real-time collaboration schedules. This means team members in Paris must collaborate at night with a Seattle headquarters or a team in Tokyo must conference at 5 a.m. with headquarters in New York where it’s 4 p.m. The result is that people in other regions feel abused by the home office and can even interpret such practices as cultural insensitivity.

    The most collaborative companies reject headquarters-driven schedules. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I describe how collaborative organizations solve time zone problems by rotating convenience among regions. This has particular relevance for scheduled videoconferences and web conferences. The convenience of spontaneous encounters should also rotate based on common sense. If one collaborator or group of collaborators stays up late one week, their counterparts across the ocean may sacrifice convenience the next week. Collaborative leaders must consider work styles and lifestyles of global team members when scheduling interactions or collaborating spontaneously.

    It’s time to BREAK OUT of a headquarters-driven collaboration schedule and mindset so that global teams can create greater value.   

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  • Mirror Zones for Collaboration

    Mirror zones are time zones that are opposite or nearly opposite. It’s a term I coined in The Culture of Collaboration book. The term has much relevance for collaboration.

    Using mirror zones, companies can compress product cycle time and time-to-market by creating a near 24-hour product development and design environment. When team members in one time zone sleep, their colleagues in the mirror zone work. Collaboration between the mirror zones happens in real time during the shift overlap and asynchronously the rest of the time. Mirror zones can create value in industries including aerospace, automotive, consumer products, healthcare, pharmaceutical, digital effects, advertising and many others.

    In the book, I write about how Boeing is successfully using mirror zones to design the 787 Dreamliner. I also write about how BMW leveraged time zones and set up mirror organizations when engineers were designing the X5. Beyond manufacturing, mirror zones can create substantial value in the service sector.

    Collaboration tools—both real time and asynchronous—are key enablers of mirror zones. But it takes more than tools for mirror zones to work. Bridging cultures is key.

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