Collaboration Process Conclusions

This lesson has brought together our conceptual understanding of how collaboration generally occurs in the contemporary problem domain with illustrative examples in practice. In concluding this lesson, we highlight some aspects about how collaboration occurs that have thus far been implicit, including:

• While conceptualizations are heuristic to identify elements and their relationships that manifest collaboration, they are an abstract and/or ideal representation of how they occur in practice.
• Conceptual presentations of collaboration often take on a cyclical appearance as a reflection of their highly interactive and non-linear nature (Ansell & Gash, 2008). The dynamism of collaboration is widely recognized (e.g., Plummer, 2009).
• Finally, as Caffyn (2000) observes, partnerships have a lifecycle. Upon reaching the conclusion of the intended collaboration the participants may elect to continue, revise the collaboration or discontinue.  Sometimes even when collaboration stops, the capacity built endures and may be activated if required in the future.