Evaluating the Imperative of Intraorganizational Collaboration

“Collaboration” is a ubiquitously championed concept and widely recognized across the public and private sectors as the foundation on which the capacity for addressing complex issues is predicated. For those invested in organizational improvement, high-quality collaboration has become no less than an imperative. However, evaluators and program stakeholders often struggle to assess the quality of collaborative dynamics and the merits of collaborative structures. In this article, the authors describe an approach to demystifying and assessing interpersonal collaboration and use their consultancy work with school improvement stakeholders to illustrate a multistage collaboration evaluation process. Evaluators in a wide range of organizational settings are encouraged to utilize collaboration theory and the evaluation strategies presented herein to cultivate stakeholder capacity to understand, examine, and capitalize on the power of collaboration.