Collaboration Tools Connect Credit Union CEOs/Boards

Today more than ever, CEOs need boards who understand the external competitive complexities that drive so many decisions. Boards want to know more about the development and implementation of its credit union's strategies, but board members need more time to take in the information and, they need to be able to do it on their own schedules.

So, how do you get more information in the hands of board members so they become true collaborators with the CEO without more and/or longer meetings or slowing down decision-making?

Collaboration tools can help involve a board at the appropriate level. The most common are, of course, e-mail and the telephone. E-mail is great because everyone can "engage" on their own time, a requisite. But it's also limited due to security issues and its one on one approach. The phone is great, but getting everyone scheduled in on a teleconference can be nearly as big a problem as scheduling a regular meeting, and you still have to deal with distributing background documents.

More sophisticated collaboration tools allow board members to receive and share information and documents, ask questions, make decisions, and even track board activities anytime, day or night.

There are three categories of collaboration tools. The first incorporates highly sophisticated intranet tools that reside on your network server and can be used as an extranet for board members. These include products like Novell GroupWise, which has a shared calendar, e-mail, and discussion area. The two primary downsides to this approach are that you have to support the product and initial cost can be high (anywhere between $15,000.00 and $50,000.00 plus the time required by your IS department to set). The upside is that you own and control the extranet.

The second category is the less-sophisticated internet service that can be used like an extranet. For example, MSN web communities provides a shared calendar, information storage, and discussion areas. The two primary downsides to this approach are security, which is limited to nonexistent, and dependency on a "public" service that may be discontinued. The upside is they are free or next to free ($5.00 - $10.00 per month per user).

The third category of collaboration tools is provided by Application Service Providers (ASPs). These are companies that have business plans specializing in secure, extranet collaboration for organizations. The focus of the ASP is to provide the tools necessary for groups to collaborate via the internet and to charge a monthly fee for its use. Two examples of this type of service are "eRoom" and "CUBoards". Both of these take a similar approach to providing state of the art security and all the collaboration tools you would expect (discussions, shared calendar, document/project repository, member database). The main difference between the two is that "eRoom" is project member centric in that activities are organized around projects and "CUBoards" is board member centric in that activities are organized around Board interaction and documents. The two primary downsides of using an ASP are the monthly cost (normaly a couple thousand dollar set up fee and around $30.00 per user per month) and they tend to be less user friendly because of security safeguards and robust collaboration features. The upside is that they provide state of the art tools for collaborating in a secure environment and they usually can be up and running in a matter of hours.

A good collaboration tool does more than just keep board members informed. True board/executive collaboration at the appropriate level will provide you with confidence that your board understands and supports those tough decisions now a part of your credit union's everyday life.

Written by Rich Noland for the "Credit Union Executive Newsletter."