So let's start off by talking about the basics of collaboration, make sure we're all on the same page in terms of what we mean by collaboration. So there's lots of different words associated with the idea of collaboration. The definition that we're gonna be working with in this module is collaboration is about working with others to produce or create something. So this is a very broad definition of collaboration. But let's focus a little bit because we wanna focus particularly on collaboration inside organizations. So our focus is gonna be on collaboration between employees inside an organization. Now, why is collaboration important? Why should we care about this topic at all? Well if you've spent any time working inside organizations you're gonna know you gotta work with other people to get things done right. And so many large organizations are currently very focused on trying to understand how to get the people to work more effectively together to make them all productive and more successful in the workplace. Lots of different kinds of organizations, these are just some of the ones that I've done research with. Or that have come out and said, your collaboration is really, really big deal for us and there are many others like this. But all the way from organizations like Microsoft to very different kinds of organizations like The World Bank to McKinsey & Company. Consulting firms Saatchi & Saatchi. Global advertising organization. Many organizations around the world have at the core of what they try to do better. They say, we really need to get better at collaboration. So this is an issue that's currently facing organizations, small and large, across the world. So the big question that we're really gonna be focussing on in this module is, how can we improve collaboration inside organizations? So that's ultimately the goal that we wanna be moving towards. But I'm gonna break this down into four main areas that we're gonna work through, through the four segments that are gonna follow this one in this module. The first question is how can we describe collaboration patterns between employees? So okay, collaboration matters, what terminology can we use to talk about collaboration? And how can that help us to understand whether we're good or bad at collaboration inside our organization? The second question is, how can we map the collaboration patterns inside a particular organization? Right, so we have some ways to describe collaboration networks but can we actually figure out who's collaborating with whom inside our organization. Then, how do we evaluate collaboration patterns? So maybe we know who's collaborating with whom. But is it good or bad, right? What is it that makes this form of collaboration good? Why might it be problematic? And then the last question is, okay. If we've discovered that there's some areas that are really concerning. Are not going so well from a collaboration point of view. How can we improve these collaboration patterns? So these are the four questions. Again, companies are really concerned about them and we're gonna be thinking about as we work through this module. Now, where does people analytics come in, right? People analytics, just a broad definition, is a data-driven approach to managing people at work. So we're gonna try to use data and analytical techniques to understand and address those four questions that we just laid out. Now here's the thing that I really want to introduce as the way to think about collaboration inside organizations. We have a very powerful set of tools and techniques that can be used to analyze collaboration inside organizations that are called, or that come out of the rubric, or come out of the broad platform of organizational network analysis, right. And organizational network analysis is a set of tools and techniques that can be used to evaluate and ultimately improve collaboration inside organizations. So let's just take a quick look at what an organizational network can look like. And I'm gonna use this example throughout. So you're gonna see it many times. But here's an example of an organizational network. So this is a real network that comes from a new product development team, this is a team with 15 members. As you can see, each member is represented by a dot, and these members happen to come from three different functional areas within this organization. There are some from marketing, some from finance, some from manufacturing, and what this network is showing us is who seeks information from whom. A one headed arrow means that I seek information from that person The two headed arrow means, I seek information from that person and they seek information from me. Right, so this is an organizational network that can help us to understand the interactions with the kinds of collaborations that are happening inside an organization. So this is the set of, we're gonna learn much more about this as we go forward. As a way to understand collaboration inside firms. So when we go back to our four questions how do we describe Map evaluate, improve collaboration patterns. We're gonna use these tools and techniques that come from organizational network analysis to address these questions and to give us some insight into the answers to these questions