At times it seems we to go out of our way to avoid thinking about collaboration this way. We focus on the thing getting built, the many hands that are doing the building. But that's not yet collaborating, that's just working together. Real collaboration is always about conversation. That's what gives conversations their passion.
Communication is only the medium by which conversations occur.
People hanging around talking on or off line isn't a distraction. It's the work of collaboration. Because conversations are open-ended, they necessarily will go down wrong paths. That is a requirement for collaboration, not a failing. Collaborative engagements are necessarily creative because conversations never know where they're going to end up.