Creating a Collaboration Culture

This Review focuses on collaboration in the Human Services sector. Since 2013, the drivers for collaboration in this sector to improve customer, delivery and community outcomes have been given fresh impetus by the Government’s commissioning and contestability agenda.

Effective collaboration results in outcomes that could not be achieved otherwise.¹ This is because collaboration draws on a broader pool of ideas and approaches. The Review found that in some areas of the Human Services sector the use of collaboration is growing. There are positive examples of collaborative projects aimed at redesigning services, coordinating place based activities and working across agency siloes.

Refer to the full Collaboration Review document to the right.

¹Helen Dickinson, Helen Sullivan, 2014, Imagining the 21st century public service workforce, Melbourne School of Government, p37

The collaboration blueprint provides an overview of the elements to consider when deciding on ‘why’, ‘with whom’ and ‘how’ to collaborate. It is based on a review of collaboration literature as well as insights and experience from practitioners in the public, private and not for profit sectors.

This collaboration blueprint consists of:

• A high-level depiction of a collaboration framework
• Guidance about how to apply the framework
• A detailed version of the collaboration framework

This blueprint is a guide. It is designed as a tool to form the basis of discussions within and between potential collaborating organisations. It does not provide ‘yes or no’ answers. Rather, it is intended to guide consideration of the potential or existing collaboration. The blueprint may also trigger new questions to consider specific to different types of collaboration projects.