Category: DESIGN LOGBOOK

The Formula 1 championship is one of the most fiercely competitive sports worldwide. To get the final victory teams engage in neck-and-neck battles. To be successful, these teams are built on a robust and hyper-efficient collaboration model. For instance, when it’s time for the pit stop, every millisecond counts. The team must interact efficiently with a robust and efficient toolkit.

“Aerodynamics are for those who can’t build engines”

Enzo Ferrari

In part one of this post, I reflected on how companies can unlock business value by investing in an effective collaboration model. I pointed out how it could look at its return on the investment.

A successful collaboration model requires a robust toolkit. In part two, I will share my experience assembling a collaborative toolkit. In my past experiences, I based the collaboration models on four tools. Confluence, Jira, Figma, and Miro are the pillars of envisioning, documenting, delivering and maintaining successful digital experiences.

Documentation, project management and design are critical topics. They are essential to me when I design a collaboration model. To get these three areas covered, teams need a toolkit to rely on. They need it to encourage individual contributors to feel safe to exchange to foster a collaboration-driven environment. When evaluating toolkit performances, I only look at one indicator, the adoption rate. It’s imperative that all the team members adopt each tool consistently to get the most out of it.

Documentation

Documenting project stages is crucial for teams to show vital signs of commitment and accountability. Documentation helps track progress, identify potential issues, and communicate effectively with team members and stakeholders. In addition, documenting project stages can help to create a knowledge repository that can be used in future projects, saving time and resources. I consider Confluence critical for a collaborative toolkit. It is a powerful tool for creating and sharing project knowledge across business units and teams. Primarily, it allows team members to be highly responsive in sharing the project state with senior managers.

Project management

From the moment teams start collaborating, the to-do lists pile up. It can be overwhelming, especially when teams have multiple projects to manage. A proper project management activity can help teams tame their to-do list and go from chaos to clarity. The expected outcome is for the project contributors to trust and protect each other. The goodwill of streamlining tasks, prioritising projects, and keeping everything on track needs support in terms of tooling. In my opinion, Jira is the best tool to “slice the elephant”. The way it provides a project overview is very straightforward. With it, teams can set priorities, manage tasks, and track real-time progress. Combined with the proper techniques and rituals, I find Jira a critical tool to support teams to stay organised and productive.

Design toolkit

Design thinking and design collaboration tools can help teams speak the same language, overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. As a designer by education and trade, I have always loved using design tools for most of my daily tasks. However, with the advent of fantastic software that helps teams to be more design-driven, even accidental designers can unlock their creativity in solving complex problems with outstanding options.
Combined with other tools, the design ones can significantly enhance the collaboration model. Thanks to their capacity to facilitate discussions among team members and stakeholders. The most visible benefit of this combo is its ability to break down silos within teams. By fostering communication and transparency, they allow team members to work together in real time, share ideas, and build on each other’s strengths.

The essential design tools the Vorwerk International Experience Design Team relies on are Figma and Miro. I don’t need to explain the great features these two tools provide. For our team, they are essential because they bring inclusion, a shallow learning curve, and a solid motivation to experiment with the power of visual communication with the folks using them.

Conclusions

Undoubtedly, Confluence, Jira, Figma, and Miro are the four cornerstones of efficient and effective team collaboration. However, we must not limit ourselves to any particular tool when designing our collaboration model. The best toolkit is the one that is tailored to meet the unique needs of our team and organization while being easily accessible, scalable, and sustainable. Together, we can work towards achieving our goals and creating a brighter future.

Caveats and feedback

These are my reflections. I would love your feedback.

What does the toolkit that enables your organization to collaborate look like? Did you find better toolkits?

Image credits

N.A.

The collaboration model is vital to organizations delivering digital experiences that unlock business value.

“Groups of people apply a Collaboration Model to communicate, collaborate and coordinate to get activities done.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/

The collaboration model’s three Cs

Establishing and orchestrating how teams collaborate to reach a shared objective is challenging. Indeed, it entails three complex human activities: collaboration, communication and coordination.

Upon observing teams accomplishing a task, I started to identify some behavioural patterns. Some of them are incredibly relevant to make the collaboration effective and successful.

Collaboration

Collaboration is second nature to humans once we recognise that humans are social animals. The first “C” is indispensable for success in the dynamic and complex business world. A one-man show is never an option for a thriving business. The pillars of successful collaboration are trust and respect, essential for creating a secure and productive team environment. Trust is the foundation for prioritising tasks. Respect is critical for building and maintaining a safe space where creativity can flourish. I consider these values like muscles requiring consistent training to remain in top form. Combined, they create a powerful synergy that allows people to work together seamlessly to achieve their goals. Everyone’s objectives must align, from senior managers to junior developers, to find the best compromise for making crucial decisions.

Communication

Clear and effective communication is crucial to establish a successful collaboration model. When both top-down and bottom-up communication are self-explanatory, teams can communicate openly and share their challenges, business needs, and stakeholder expectations. This is essential for fostering excellent team chemistry and achieving success. A clear and consistent project brief is one example of improving communication. Although raising the bar on communication quality can be challenging, it is the only way to build trust and respect. Communication should always be straightforward, inclusive, and consistent. This helps team members to actively promote a feedback culture to encourage an honest and transparent exchange of relevant information.

Coordination

Allowing teams to collaborate to achieve success is a complex process that requires coordination. It’s essential to ensure that every team member is on the same page and that everything works efficiently, avoiding delays or roadblocks. A clear plan must be in place to achieve this, accompanied by strict adherence to a timeline. This approach is the ultimate tool to prioritise tasks and mitigate the risk of every decision effectively. By establishing a well-coordinated effort, team members can focus on their responsibilities. At the same time, they can track any dependencies and be ready to offer a plan B in case of unexpected blockers. Building a high-performing team that achieves success is a balancing act. It requires coordination, a clear plan, and a backup plan to minimise risks and ensure a successful outcome.

Conclusions

Humans tend to hack everything, but being too much of a hacker in a business environment can cause confusion and a lack of accountability. To encourage collaboration, I lead by example and apply the three Cs – communication, coordination, and cooperation – to create an inclusive environment where every team member feels safe sharing their ideas. This approach can help achieve top performance and unlock business value.

Caveats and feedback

I haven’t hashed out all the details of the framework I developed, but I tried to write down my reflections.

I would love your feedback. Have you ever designed a collaboration model? Have you found better approaches?

Image credits

Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash