At its core, collective intelligence is the productive force created when groups of people work together supported by technology. They get the job done by combining and applying insights based on an aggregated collection of information and ideas. Put another way, collective intelligence emerges when the results of a group’s activities become more than just the sum of their parts.
The important question is: How do we foster and grow collective intelligence within organizations and their business ecosystems?
At Atos, that is precisely what we are continuously exploring and addressing in our collective intelligence programs and projects — both for ourselves and for our customers.
We use the following basic model as a guiding principle when we start planning and preparing for a collective intelligence initiative. No matter what business process is being transformed, we know that these components will always play a crucial role.
Content
It all begins with content: data, information and knowledge. How is it stored? Is it open or siloed? Is it accessible to everyone that can benefit from it? Is it trustworthy, reliable and up to date? Is it protected and secured appropriately? Is every stakeholder able to contribute to the body of knowledge?
Teams and their members
There is always a core team surrounding the content, which is essential to executing the process. These are the custodians. How do they work together to deliver an end-to-end business process? What are their work patterns? How do they collaborate and communicate? How does the information flow and what feedback mechanisms are in play?
Community and network
The next aspect to consider is the internal or external groups of people or organizations that work for customers. When they are closely connected, we call them communities. When they are loosely coupled, we speak of networks. In most cases, we identify several communities and several networks. It is important to ask the same kinds of questions about these communities and networks as we did with teams. How are they organized? How do they interact within themselves and with the core team? How does the information flow? Can we discover patterns? How do they communicate and collaborate? What are the feedback mechanisms?
Smart tooling
While addressing all the questions above, we also make an inventory of the technology used, including systems of operation, systems of record and systems of engagement. The next step is to enhance the current mode of operation by introducing small experiments based on new work patterns and/or technology interventions to boost the collective intelligence for a certain aspect of the business process. Once we have undergone a few iterations and proven that an enhancement works and delivers benefits, we begin to scale.
At this point, you may find yourself thinking “This sounds all nice, but can you show it in action?” Fortunately, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
As we mentioned at the beginning, Atos is applying the collective intelligence approach within our own organization, and we are more than happy to show you the progress we have made on our journey.
For a demonstration of collective intelligence in action, fill out the form below to schedule an appointment to see how we revolutionized our global portfolio process with the Microsoft 365 platform.
Request a Demo
During this session we will illustrate how SharePoint, Teams, Yammer and elements of Project Cortex work in combination with bot technology and Microsoft’s Power platform to seamlessly serve core teams, communities and networks with an end-to-end business process from innovation to execution.
It will not only focus on the technology enablers, but the human side of things as well — because people are the critical factor in achieving the benefits of collective intelligence for the organization, networks, communities, teams and individual employees.
We look forward to meeting you!
