Often, people use a collaboration tool like Discussion Forums to make decisions. Through the collaborative process, you can determine the perceived impact, validity and relevancy of any idea you can dream up. This can apply to opinions, perspectives, or even generic thoughts, like "should we get rid of voicemail, so that it isn't a crutch to avoid talking to people?".
From the gathered information, decisions can be made that will be much more well informed because everyone is able to contribute to the process. Getting the information needed to make better decisions is great, but it is only part of the value that a discussion forum provides.
Lets say that you have created an action plan for a new great idea, but you didn't use an enterprise wiki tool to capture the details behind it. Then, for whatever reason, the execution of that action plan is delayed (there are any number of reasons to delay the implementation of a good idea- turnover in a key position, market changes, etc.). It could be weeks, or even months, before you get back to your idea, and there is a good chance that you won't remember everything that lead up to the creation of your action plan.
You may be faced with a situation where decisions were made based on conversations, meetings, and opinions that were not captured. This leaves you with a number of questions about why you did what you did.
However, if you used discussion forums to develop and refine your idea, you would have a complete record of every reason for how you arrived with your conclusions. From there, you can revisit any point that you need to, or start up the full conversation again. You would save hours of discussions and meetings- and you would make sure you don't miss any critical points.
Sometimes, capturing the process is just as valuable as the result.
From the gathered information, decisions can be made that will be much more well informed because everyone is able to contribute to the process. Getting the information needed to make better decisions is great, but it is only part of the value that a discussion forum provides.
Lets say that you have created an action plan for a new great idea, but you didn't use an enterprise wiki tool to capture the details behind it. Then, for whatever reason, the execution of that action plan is delayed (there are any number of reasons to delay the implementation of a good idea- turnover in a key position, market changes, etc.). It could be weeks, or even months, before you get back to your idea, and there is a good chance that you won't remember everything that lead up to the creation of your action plan.
You may be faced with a situation where decisions were made based on conversations, meetings, and opinions that were not captured. This leaves you with a number of questions about why you did what you did.
However, if you used discussion forums to develop and refine your idea, you would have a complete record of every reason for how you arrived with your conclusions. From there, you can revisit any point that you need to, or start up the full conversation again. You would save hours of discussions and meetings- and you would make sure you don't miss any critical points.
Sometimes, capturing the process is just as valuable as the result.
