The situation
Cooperation is usually thought of in terms of place. People work together because they sit in the same office, at the same table, in the same city. Online then looks like whatever is left when the place is missing. That view misses what makes a place shared in the first place.
Online as the revealing case
People who spend years in the same building are not thereby working together. And people who have never been in the same room can create a piece of work that binds them. What creates a common place is acting together, not physical proximity.
On site this is hard to see, because the room supplies so much along the way: the encounter in the corridor, lunch together, the sense of belonging simply because one is there. Online, what came along for free falls away. What remains is what actually connects the participants: the shared purpose, the promises kept, the recognition of contributions, the joy of succeeding together. Online is therefore the case that shows what cooperation consists of. Cooperation on site is the comparison.
Anyone who practises a language every week for months with a teacher in another country learns more about her everyday life along the way than about that of some colleagues down the corridor.
What works particularly well online
Online works particularly well for anything built from clearly defined contributions: preparation, research, writing and reviewing texts, working on a shared document, surveys and their analysis. Here the quiet of one’s own desk is an advantage, and the shared workspace makes every stage visible to all.
Online also makes possible what would fail on site because of travel and cost. An expert from another country joins for an hour. A reading group brings together people from several continents. A small group whose membership changes meets without anyone having to travel. People who cannot travel because of illness, caring duties or disability take part as a matter of course. Travel no longer matters, and no meeting room is too small. Time matters more instead: a group across five time zones may have one shared hour a day.
Finally, cooperation online leaves traces: drafts, comments, decisions with dates. That makes it traceable and, where it matters, provable.
What works particularly well on site
On site works particularly well for anything that depends on things you have to handle: inspecting a workpiece, building a model, choosing a material, operating equipment that exists in only one place. Here the place is not a habit but part of the task.
The incidental also comes more easily on site: the short, unplanned conversation, the chance that brings together two people who would not otherwise have sought each other out. Online, room can be made for this, through open time without an agenda or through playing together. But it has to be intended.
And some people settle in more easily on site, for instance newcomers who do not yet know a group’s unwritten rules. That is no argument against online, but it is a reason to design the start online with particular care: a fixed contact person, time for questions, and first meetings that are not only about the work.
Hybrid forms
Most cooperation is neither purely online nor purely on site. Hybrid can mean two things.
One is alternation over time: a kick-off on site, the work online, a gathering at the end or on an anniversary. This is usually straightforward and often a good combination. Such a meeting does most good when it serves what is harder online: the incidental.
The other is the hybrid session, with some people in the room and others joining online. It is more demanding than either pure form, because those in the room easily forget the others. One simple rule helps: run the session as if everyone were online. The chair attends first to contributions from outside the room, the sound from the room is as good as one’s own, and documents sit in the shared workspace rather than on the table.
The common mistake
The hybrid session run like a meeting on site. Those in the room talk to each other; those joining online listen and, after twenty minutes, switch off their cameras. In the end, the decisions are made by those who were in the room.
Law
Law increasingly allows for both forms. General meetings of an association (Verein) can be held in hybrid or virtual form (Section 32(2) German Civil Code, BGB), and civil courts can hold oral hearings by audio-visual transmission (Section 128a German Code of Civil Procedure, ZPO). Where resolutions are passed, the legal form decides (Decisions and meetings). Where people from several countries work together, the question of applicable law arises (Across borders).
Read on: Misconceptions about online cooperation · Synchronous and asynchronous · What cooperation is