Slides from a presentation I delivered on the use of social collaboration tools at Fastems in May 2013. While all the company-specific examples in this set have been published on the internet before in the form of shorter presentations I have delivered on the same subject, I personally like this presentation the most, as it goes deeper into the theoretical side of why social collaboration is worth pursuing. In short presentations, the theoretical background is the first section to be cut in favor of showcasing actual results, but in order to truly grok social business, understanding the reasons why is indispensable. As this material is two years old by now, Fastems' current applications have no doubt evolved beyond this point. Nonetheless, I believe even the stage where Fastems was in 2013 may still offer useful insights to many companies in 2015.

1. 31.5.2013
Social Collaboration Tools at
Fastems
Ville Kilkku (@VilleKilkku)
Lean Manager
Fastems Oy Ab

2. 31.5.2013
Fastems in brief
• Factory automation supplier and integrator: FMS, robot cells,
tools
• Offices in 10 countries, around 450 employees

3. Theoretical basis (1/3): connecting people
• Improving the cooperation of strong ties
• Utilizing and increasing the number of weak ties
• Potential for utilizing absent ties (prediction markets, not used at
Fastems as of yet)
Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sociology, 1973, Vol. 78, Issue 6, 1360-80
Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges, 2009
31.5.2013

4. 21.6.2015
Theoretical basis (2/3): part of work vs
additional work
• In-the-flow – wiki is the tool (memos, plans etc. are created within
the wiki)
• Above-the-flow – wiki is extra work (knowledgebases, Wikipedia)
Michael Idinopulos, In-the-Flow and
Above-the-Flow, blog post
26.12.2007
http://michaeli.typepad.com/my_w
eblog/2007/12/in-the-flow-
and.html
Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li,
Groundswell, 2008 (revised edition
2011)
• Both can be used, but it is
more difficult to get
people to contribute to
above-the-flow
applications

5. Theoretical basis (3/3): Motivation
• Self-determination theory
– Possibility to affect own work and environment (autonomy)
– Possibility to develop and show expertise (mastery)
– Possibility to connect with other employees (relatedness)
– Possibility to do work that is meaningful (purpose)
Popularization of the theory:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, 2011
(original research, e.g. Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan)
Motivation
Autonomy
Mastery Relatedness
Purpose
31.5.2013

6. 31.5.2013
Social collaboration tool
• The platform
(Confluence) was
purchased to be a tool
• HR and communications
departments were not
involved in the original
implementation
• Nowadays the platform
is Fastems’ social intranet
and a home to multiple
business processes
• Some use cases on next
pages

7. Social feedback system
• Internal feedback freely available throughout the
organization: improved lead times (people participate
spontaneously) and improved results (problem-solving
suggestions from a wider audience).
• Also a process and responsible persons => ensures
handling even when social aspect does not contribute

8. 31.5.2013
Customer complaint handling
• Main responsible persons
for complaint handling
are local service
managers
• This application provides
them with a better
communication channel
to engineering and R&D,
both for solving the
issues and for future
development needs
• Also ensures consistent
documentation of
complaints

9. 31.5.2013
Integrated management system
• ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS
18001 (not certified)
• Wiki fulfills most of ISO 9001
4.2.3 (Control of documents)
requirements out of the box
• Editing and approvals can be
restricted, if needed (at
Fastems everything is done via
instructions)
• Processes and instructions can
be discussed about
• Process charts are drawn
directly via web interface
(Gliffy)

10. 31.5.2013
Ideas and innovation
• Same basic idea as
with internal
feedback: visibility,
discussions
• ”Like” functionality
• Front-end of
innovation made
more transparent
and open

11. 31.5.2013
R&D projects
• Everyone at Fastems
has full access to all
R&D materials
– Project goals
– Design drivers
– Project status
– Project results
• ”Traffic light”
indicates what can
be shared outside
the company

12. 31.5.2013
Delivery projects
• Transparency
throughout the
organization
• Analysis of current
status
• Decision-making
• Roles of data systems:
ERP
• Financial data
• Purchasing
• Manufacturing
• Invoicing
PDM
• CAD models
• Specifications
• Test reports
Intra (wiki)
• ”Soft data”
• Change
management
• Risk
management
• Memos

13. 31.5.2013
Knowledgebases (engineering, service)
• Information easy to
find, easy to update
• Challenge is getting
people to create new
content:
knowledgebase is
something extra,
whereas most of our
other applications are
simply tools where
the actual work is
done (it is difficult to
get people to do
extra work)

14. 31.5.2013
Marketing and communications
• Organizing of events
• Commenting on
marketing materials

15. 31.5.2013
Well-being at work
• Fastems supports the
employees’ well-being
at work
• Internal ”hobby clubs”
– Golfers, scubadivers,
poker players etc.
– Open to everyone
– Fastems provides
funding, but only if the
club activities are
reported on the internal
platform

16. 31.5.2013
Internal phone book, with pictures
• Everyone has a profile
– Picture
– Contact information
– Some people include job
descriptions or competencies,
but this is not mandatory
• More information on people
than in a traditional phone
book

17. 31.5.2013
Conclusions
• Applications are developed for the platform for processes and
functions: first there is a business need, then we create a
solution
• Social collaboration tools can improve many processes!
• Some benefits become greater as the number of users increases
(more people become exposed to information) – this is why it is
important to also have general use cases, some perhaps not
directly business-related (phone book, hobby clubs, second-
hand market)
• Social collaboration tools require an open, transparent
corporate culture – however, using them also shapes the
corporate culture towards transparency, so systematic
management decisions can create this culture over the years if it
does not exist yet

18. 21.6.2015
www.fastems.com
Thank you!