The essential ingredients of collaboration

Abstract

We propose there are eight essential ingredients for collaboration, regardless of any underlying technology - including face-to-face environments. These ingredients are: two or more people; shared space; time; a common objective; focus on the objective; common language; knowledge in the area of the objective; and interaction. These ingredients are useful for identifying aspects for improvement in both collaboration technology and human collaboration processes. Based on these essential ingredients glimpses of future technology can be seen