CAD Manager: Keys to Collaboration, Part Two
In the August 2014 issue, we discussed key approaches that will aid in collaboration. We outlined how the functions of contribution, cooperation, and teamwork may not be fully collaborative. They are all used in the collaborative process, but if you settle exclusively into one of these methods you may merely be working together and not fully collaborative. To help differentiate between the above methods and collaboration, let’s think about each.
Contribution is when an individual provides a deliverable to a team from the outside. Once they contribute, their participation is completed and they have their desired outcome. Like an auto parts store “contributing” the oil for your oil change. They sell you the product and you do the work.
Cooperation is when one party assists another by temporarily providing manpower or tools to get something completed. It would be like you asking a friend to help you build shelves in your garage. They help you do it and bring their tools with them. They use their tools and time to make your garage look better. You get the shelves and they usually get lunch and a few beers.
Teamwork, which comes closest to collaboration, is when individuals work side by side with individual but separate tasks, duties, and goals. Like a football team that has highly skilled professionals doing unique tasks together. They have individual jobs, but focus on one outcome—winning the game. Each has his own job to do and the team benefits from their participation.
Now on to the next few keys to collaboration. Here again is my working definition for collaboration: “A process that combines individuals into a group with a single, interdependent focus on a united beneficial outcome.” Each participant’s success is dependent upon the success of the others. They all work in a unified process toward a collective outcome. They sometimes overlap or take on differing roles to complete the overall project.
A quick recap of last month’s six keys. They included several items starting with the idea that it is not just about the software. Collaboration includes unified purpose, shared motivation, coordinated self-scheduling, constant participation, and compromise. If you need a refresher, go back and read Part One again.
Key Seven: Reciprocity (Sharing)
Only when open and full exchanges happen among team members can true collaboration occur. You may share manpower, office space, transportation, shipping, etc. By truly sharing resources, team members complete stages of the project faster than they would if they had to do everything standalone. Reciprocity may show itself as an adjusted schedule where teams overlap and line up and then adjust as schedule impacts cause delays in the next step. The team is nimble enough to rethink the schedule to see what can be completed while the delay is taking place.
Key Eight: Communication
No one can withhold information on any level. I am not saying that everyone opens the books on all intellectual property, but there must be an open sharing of processes, milestones, methods, and means at a high level. Everyone needs to know what the others are doing and when they are doing it. Misunderstandings need to be uncovered and addressed. Enmity and jealousies cannot be given space and time to grow. Full, regular communication must be expected, monitored, and focused.
Meetings can be overdone. Mindless rehashing of details can become tedious. Endless emails and documents can become a deluge. But communication must happen—standardized, defined, regular, and open communication by all involved in the project. I have seen project team members assume they were on the same page until a milestone was missed or a deliverable was not complete. Then the conversation uncovered misunderstood expectations and undefined details. Striking the right balance between too much and not enough is not easy, but must be reached. Too much and people will not be able to filter out the unimportant. Too little and the important may be left out.
Key Nine: Building the Right Team
When project teams collaborate, it is usually in a new relationship with other firms. Some teams stay together for multiple projects, but usually it is not the case. These new relationships call for structure. The general advice I have uncovered is to build teams with participants who have some prior existing relationships. They have worked together before. Build social relationships with new team members. Don’t make it all about the work. The more each team member gets to know the others, the more willing they may be to go the extra mile. Make sure that face-to-face meetings are happening as much as possible. If the meeting allows for connecting before or after for lunch, then include that option. Use the lunch hour to connect, not to continue working. Talk about something other than the project.
Key Ten: Flexible Leadership
When bringing together a group of talented people, leave room for them to organize themselves. Collaborative leadership does not come from a single person—it comes from the group. That does not mean a committee decides. That might be crippling. It means that leadership comes from within the team and might migrate from one leader to another depending on the area of need. Let the topic being discussed define the leader. Let the best person for the job at any given time take the lead. The decisions are submitted back to the entire team for consensus, then everyone moves forward together.
Key Eleven: Relationship-Oriented Leaders
When leaders rise up in the group (and that will happen), make sure they understand the need for relationship building and focus, and not just task-based interactions. When interactions are reduced to task assignments, reporting, and monitoring, the people involved tend to lean away from collaboration. They start to feel like they are a part in the machine with no direct connection to the overarching goals. Because it is so easy to fall into being task-driven, keep it people focused. Leaders need to balance the needs for task completion with the interpersonal relationship of the members.
Key Twelve: Creative Innovation
When a group of talented people gather with a unified purpose and shared motivation, let them be creative and innovative in the way they work together. The key is allowing them space to mix together the unique experience of each into the cohesive methods of all. These new ways of working allow the group to approach each project with gusto and innovative ideas. Do not underestimate the creative combinations that can be achieved in completing a project when staff, location, process, and resources can be mixed together because everyone is collaboratively minded.
Key Thirteen: Proactive Engagement
When everyone is engaged in the process they should be motivated to make things happen and not just wait and see. Waiting is cautionary and is motivated by fear of being wrong. Empower all team members to speak up and contribute to conversations. Give them permission to suggest adjustments without push back from leadership. Engagement is the key way to gauge collaboration. When someone or a group of people start to no longer engage in the process and appear to be pulling back, the collaboration has stopped. They are now thinking about the impact of the project on only their portion and not the whole. Look for more uses of “we” and “us” and less “me,” “mine,” and “ours.”
By keeping the 13 keys I have mentioned in these two articles in mind, you can help develop and work with collaborative teams. The collective success is so much richer for all involved. Give it a try.
