Cooperation, working together with other people, performing like a team.

Is there any job-role that does not involve any of these aspects? The answer is probably “No!”.

In modern society, working together and cooperating has become an integral part of our day-to-day life. Even more challenging is the fact that cooperation is shifting from its traditional face-to-face form to virtual cooperation, whereby Zoom conference calls, online checklists and working in different time zones has found its way into projects and teams. This new type of cooperation requires an adaptive skillset.

As technology becomes advances, the importance of the human factor might appear to move to the background. The opposite, however, seems to be true. The criteria for effective cooperation, trust and knowledge sharing are equally important in virtual cooperation. It just requires other skills and more effort when working together at arm’s length.

Cooperation in general and collaboration in particular is, to quote Duarte and Snyder “… one of the most important factors for team success… When people work together, teams will work faster, have higher motivation, will built work relationships faster which all are important factors for team performance” (Duarte & Snyder, 2001).

Please watch the following presentation on assessing the capability to collaborate in a virtual world. Presented at the International Test Committee  conference in 2021