Nowadays Cyber-Physical Systems gain more and more attention in regard to the Industry 4.0 or Digital Transformation in general. These systems imply the tight integration of physical and software components and are becoming more complex, forming highly inter-connected systems-of-systems. Furthermore, as components and subsystems are becoming more intelligent, there is a need for a paradigm shift towards considering them as ecosystems of collaborative entities with growing levels of autonomy. There is, however, the lack of proper methodologies and support frameworks for the design of such systems. In this context a contribution to an approach for the development of Collaborative Cyber-Physical Systems is proposed. It introduces some core definitions, organizational and architectural aspects. The proposed approach is in line with the design science research methodology and is illustrated with some examples.