You have a problem that part of your team didn't get the message. Perhaps the message was not important, but what if it were critical? How do you insure that everyone actually got the message? How do you know if they read it and really understood it?

All of the collaboration tools in the world won't help if the people on the other end of the link don't look at their email, listen to their voicemail, check the message thread or log on to the knowledge management system.

Tell them seven times...

Collaboration tools need a method of assured delivery. A friend of mine, Peggy Morrison (see the references page) puts it simply; "if it's important that they hear the message, you have to tell them seven times."

Active messages such as those that are part of real-time collaboration are easy to check. You can always ask the person if they understood the content, or ask them to repeat the information back to you. If you have the visual clues it's easier to tell if the other person is attentive.

The challenge is when the message is asynchronous. How many times have you sent an email to a colleague and wondered if they really read it? Newer versions of the Outlook email client can block return receipts, so even that is not a reliable indication.

Why online forums don't work...

The most dangerous assumption is that if something is posted in a company or project forum, the people who need to see the content will actually look. Most folks I know resist having yet-another place they have to look for messages every day... email is enough of a time-drain. In the current state of collaborative applications, posting critical information to high-tech collaborative forums is high risk.

So what do we need? We need asynchronous collaboration tools to have a simple mechanism to assure delivery, or if delivery fails, to let interested parties know that reviewers have either seen or not yet seen the material. And you need to do it without flooding everyone with even more email or further degrading personal privacy.