Simple Rules of Collaboration

Wiktionary, a "collaborative" project defines the word "Collaboration" as working together with others to achieve a common goal. The keywords are in italics. Collaboration is the basis of concurrent engineering and integrated product development. Modern day product development requires efforts and expertise that go beyond the capabilities of individuals, groups or in some cases, entire corporations. Consider a modern day Smartphone. It contains intellectual property from communication and signal processing labs, chip vendors, audio/video codec developers, display/touch screen vendors, operating system/middleware providers, contract manufacturers and a huge community of application software developers. The OEM that puts together the end-product and brands/markets the same might be in the limelight, but the significance of collaboration among all the parties concerned cannot be overemphasized. As we can see, the scope of collaboration spans a wide spectrum - within and across teams in one organization to customers, partners, developer community, standards bodies, universities and research labs.

There are numerous success stories of collaboration that go beyond the structures and confines of corporations. Projects like Linux, Wikipedia etc are stellar examples of collaboration among a large set of unrelated stakeholders working towards a common goal. Collaboration between competitors with conflicting commercial interests has resulted in the common good of the collaborators and the end customers. The spectacular success and wide acceptance of mobile telephony was a result of such collaboration when the participants in the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) agreed to common/open standards and royalty distribution mechanisms.

Let us examine a few simple rules that can help ensure successful collaboration:

Rule #1: Trust

Trust is the foundation for effective collaboration and teamwork. The various stakeholders need to trust in each other so that the team as a whole can achieve the common goal.

Rule #2: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate…

Clear and regular communications are a must for successful collaboration. Prompt responses to emails, phone calls, or any other means of communication are required to keep the team members in sync. The golden rule "If in doubt…, ask" applies. Rather than making assumptions, it is better to clarify doubts with the counterparts to avoid errors due to guesswork. Follow up until the task is done, just so that things do not fall through the cracks.

When communicating with the team members, normal rules of etiquette apply. In today’s global setting, one needs to be aware of the cultural sensitivities when communicating. For example, arguments and loud discussions may be acceptable/encouraged in some cultures, where as in some other cultures, these may be frowned upon. Among people of the same culture or ethnicity, there could be differences in the preferred style of communication. The most effective mechanism for communicating is the one that is tuned to the audience’s preference. Despite all these differences and challenges, the common sense rule of "Give respect and get respect" applies for all situations.

Organizations invest millions of dollars to ensure smooth communication among the various stakeholders across the globe. Email, Conference Calls, Instant Messengers, Audio/Video Conferencing, Telepresence, Webex/Livemeeting etc. are the commonly used tools. In keeping with the times, many organizations use Executive Blogs and intra-company social media sites for communication.

Rule #3: Document what you do, do what you document

Good documentation can help all the parties involved. Specifications documents, test reports, design documents, comments in the code etc., help in bringing clarity into ideas and serve to eliminate rework and wastage. Documentation also helps in reducing the impact of team member attrition. Document repositories accessible across the organization over the Intranet and to external collaborators through the Extranet are effective tools for knowledge sharing.

Rule #4: Follow standards and processes

When multiple teams across sites are working together, it helps immensely to set common standards and processes and adhere to them religiously. Standardization helps reduce time/cost overruns during

the subsystem integration. Just imagine what an automobile would look like, if each component supplier were to follow his own style, instead of conforming to standards set by the OEM. In software projects, many a time, schedule slippages occur when the team tries to integrate disparate modules that do not conform to a common standard.

This does not mean that team members dumbly follow existing conventions ignoring new ways of doing things. If there is a case for improving upon an existing standard or process, it has to be pursued enthusiastically and all stakeholders need to be brought on-board. This will ensure that the improved standard becomes the new norm.

Rule #5: Transparency

Openness and honesty are essential to build a successful collaboration. Hoarding of critical data or information is a major barrier to teamwork. Sharing of critical information prevents re-inventing the wheel and saves time/cost. Being transparent about slippages, bugs etc. will help other stakeholders to plan their efforts accordingly and in many cases minimize the effects.

Rule #6: Acknowledge and cite your collaborators

Giving credit where it is due is crucial for successful collaboration. Ideas are prime movers in the knowledge industry. The knowledge worker takes pride in generating ideas and taking them through execution. Acknowledging, citing and recognizing the source of the idea sets up a culture where individuals do not hold back innovation for fear of not getting the due credit. Depending on the complexity and impact, the acknowledgement could be a simple Thank You email or a mention in the team meeting or a monetary reward or even a promotion.

To quote Charles Darwin, "It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." In all human endeavours, collaboration is not just desirable, it is imperative.