[The 9-HI™ Basics] 9-HI™ Collaboration

Collaboration is everything. 9-HI™ permits anyone to be a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and relies on effective collaboration amongst all Team members. The first thing that a Team Lead does when selected for a Topic of a 9-HI™ Project is to select the SME Team members. The SME Team members are expected to collaborate to successfully meet Project goals and objectives, the Team Lead must be a facilitator of these collaboration efforts.

Within a Project, collaboration starts with confirming or sculpting the Topic description that will be used to address the defined problem. Then SME Team collaboration focus moves onto identification of Risks, selection and tailoring of Success Factors (SFs) with Weightings and the Evidence sought to drive down Risks and drive up SF scores. Then the Team will collaborate to select and/or develop the technology. These collaborations are accomplished within the 9-HI™ Collaboration Tool and are moderated by the Team Lead. It is expected for various Team members to voice their knowledge and opinions in these forums. The Team along with guidance from the Team lead should seek to understand various viewpoints and address them through collegial discussion to arrive at the best considerations of the Project at hand. Keep in mind that no one should be trying to "win the argument" they should be attempting to add quality knowledge to the discussion content and with the right emphasis needed to benefit the conversation and related Project parameters. Team members are encouraged to seek to understand the view points of others, no team member should resort to dictating the direction of the team if team dynamics are not coalescing and progressing after sufficient time has been allowed. The Team lead may seek to change the team make-up. Team members should realize that if their comments are not constructive and well founded they are less likely to be recommended for more teams. 

Depending on the current objectives or changing objectives as the Project matures, the Team Lead may add to or modify the Team to bring in people with different skills and experience. To select initial Team SMEs or find new Team additions, the Team Lead will work with the 9-HI™ SME AI Agent to identify appropriate SMEs through review of the AI-recommended SME profiles. The Team Lead and the AI Agent will put together the optimal SME Team based on SME profiles/scores. The AI Agent or the Team Lead may also recommend less experienced yet eligible SMEs who expressed passion of training themselves for the project. Recommendations by the AI Agents used in 9-HI™ will become better as the AI Agents receive feedback from the SME Team.

Collaboration can happen anywhere in 9-HI™, not just at the Topic level. We have integrated the Collaboration Tool at the Group level for leadership only and also for all members. At the Group level, Leadership may talk privately about funding, or priorities or about strategic issues that the enterprise group needs to address. Then any member can post comments in the the All Group Member Collaboration Tool about issues that they believe are priorities for the Group. If Leadership has specific Topics or themes that they would like their members to discuss or garner responses to, they can post these on the All Group Member Collaboration Tool where free form or structured discussion can take place.

This same concept holds true at the Project level. We have placed a Collaboration Tool for the Project pool members to use in each Project. Keep in mind that some Project pools may only have members from the parent Group or they may have outside or "External" Pool Members included depending on who the Project Managers invite to the pool.