Document collaboration: can one size fit all?

With this question, and the answer it should provide, we get to a very interesting topic related to document collaboration: open collaboration vs. structured collaboration.

Of course, the answer is: one size cannot fit all, but luckily, you already have solutions for that (in our case, it's called Agilewords).

As we all know it, open collaboration has its own, many benefits, wikis being the instruments that best confirm this statement.


The users that go for open collaboration recognized the benefits of being involved and make themselves heard, but confirm the difficulties brought by the feedback process: time consuming, conflicting comments, duplicates etc.

Still, in business document collaboration, a place where everyone has the same rights towards content doesn't sound like a good idea. Improved productivity needs clear directions, a structured document workflow, quality feedback and defined roles.

People have different specialties and should definitely have different roles in a group collaboration situation like that. Further, you don't want a project where anarchy rules, right? So, you need a project manager, a leader, and clearly defined roles for your collaborative business projects.

This way, you encourage the flow of ideas, but you also stay in control of the project: get comments, the document collaboration members start discussions among each other, but no one can mess with your collaboration document.

Of course, unless you give them permission to do that, because, in a role-based collaboration you will have the option to ask for feedback without putting your work at risk.

So, in order to optimize your collaborative business experience, you should definitely choose the role-based collaboration path. A document collaboration tool can efficiently help you with this.

Our tip: try a web based collaboration solution without worrying about the security issues - they are all covered, even better than the traditional applications. For a perfect start: choose Agilewords, a free online document collaboration tool.

Sign in, upload the collaborative document, send invitations to all your document collaboration companions and start reviewing it. You will understand better the advantages of role-based collaboration and why we like it so much.