E-mail is NOT a collaboration solution

How many times have you received this message in your Inbox?

“Good morning everyone - attached is the [insert adjective here] document – please review and send me your comments by COB Thursday.”

Before I say that these messages annoy me, let me add some context to it first. The following statements are all based on an assumption that you have some sort of document management tool available to you. (If you are reading this, and say that you do not have one available, I strongly recommend you check out Google Docs – it’s free!)

So, with that being said, if you just want to see what I have to say and I’ll never see your document again then I don’t mind the message (well, too much – intellectual property is another post). However, if you (sender) expect to take feedback, incorporate it into a new rendition/version of the document and republish it later, then I am super annoyed by your message.

Why does this practice me bother so much? Because I know that you’re (sender) going to send another message 5 days from now with a new version of the document. That means that I now have 2 messages in my Inbox, 2 versions of the document and a whole string of emails from other people whose opinions aren’t relevant to me or the subject at hand.

Despite my obvious annoyance with this practice, this isn’t the main reason to avoid this practice. Rather, it’s critical to capture all of this context in a way that is traceable, searchable and easy to access (have you ever tried this in your Inbox?). Remember, it’s all about the business value, not just the last version of a published document - business value is realized through the creation and lifecycle of a document (content).

What is the solution? Simply put – collaborative spaces with document management capabilities. Google, SharePoint, OnBase, Documentum, you pick – just make sure it has notification, check-in/check-out capabilities and the ability to publish multiple major/minor versions of the same material.

Here’s a simple questionnaire to look at when crafting an email. If you answer YES to any of these questions, please consider a collaborative solution instead of attaching that document to an email.

* Is there more than one recipient for this message (that has an attachment)?
* Do you expect to receive feedback on the content (document) attached to this message?
* Do you plan on publishing another version of this content (document)?
* Will this material be used in the future by anyone in the organization?
* Will the context of the content/feedback be lost entirely if the email is deleted?
* Is the material stored on a file share or someone’s independent machine?