Effective Collaboration: Strategies, Frameworks, and Best Practices (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Best practices for collaboration. So there's a couple ways you could look at that because collaboration isn't like a checkbook and I think what I'd really recommend right away is when you think of collaboration don't think of it as an activity but a process and a frame of mind. Okay so is everybody clear what collaboration looks like? What does it mean? So in the context of strategic planning what we see really important for collaboration is making sure everybody is collaborating on the same thing as in are we going to that one destination that's first. The second piece is do we have the frameworks for collaboration which means do we have the communications structures in place? Okay do we have a set system a set sort of ground rules set expectations for us to collaborate and if you don't have those with anything that I'll share today if you don't have those ground rules for systems or processes the invitation is to set them up for what works for you because what might work for me might not work for you. You know we have somebody on this call that we've been working on a project for a while and we move through Google Drive for a system and then it moved to Dropbox and then we do weekly calls on Zoom and then there's emails you know that might work for somebody and it might not work for you. So the best my recommendation Sandra to you I don't even know where to begin is say what does successful collaboration look like to you? What does successful collaboration look like to you? And then work backwards from there. So that's the first step because if you don't know what you're aiming at how are you going to get there? The next piece that we recommend is setting ground rules and expectations for your team to work together. So this thing called the Tuckman model is basically how teams develop. First they form they group together and through COVID your like structures for your teams have changed drastically so they are probably forming in a new way. Next is storming. Getting to understand making mistakes basically you can imagine like a little storm you're making mistakes through the process. Forming, storming, norming which is when you set the clear expectation and as a group you develop norms with one another. Performing is when you start really collaborating you start really working together and then adjourning finishing. So what I recommend is to start looking and say okay first what does success look like for us? And then second what are sort of the ground rules? What are the expectations? What are the systems and processes? What are the values and behaviors? And what are the communication structures we need to put in place for collaboration? So figure out the end in mind then work backwards. Hopefully that gives you the answer that you were looking for and if it wasn't I'm happy to answer more.