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CollaborationwithOthers

I've noticed that we all collaborate differently, ranging from leave-me-alone-don't-touch-me to let's-do-everything-together. I tend to be somewhere in the middle, probably closer to the alone side. I'm consciously working on changing that a little, so I can bring more value to my clients. I practiced a little bit at the last AYE with KeithRay, pair programming. I'm practicing writing a book with EstherDerby.

Do you ever think about working together with someone else?

Do you practice working with others? In what ways?

2003.02.03 JohannaRothman

I suspect that "we all collaborate differently" is a bit too definite. Each of us collaborates differently, with different people, at different times. Some folks are more adept at making use of lots of different kinds of collaboration than others. Some are more adept at offering lots of different kinds of collaborations than others. I know some folks who are immensely powerful collaborators, in a narrow band of "kinds of collaboration."

I do my best work, working with others. So I think about collaborating a lot. And I'm pretty picky about who I'll work with and how. Over time, I've gotten better with being able to work together differently. That's useful. It expands my choices.

I've noticed that collaborating seems to be about three things at once.

• It's about the work. Doing the work, and the contents and attributes of the output.
• Who's doing what work. I've encountered a lot of "collaborators" who are offering to be editors and PM's. I still have to do all the writing. They contribute "the idea" and "feedback." Generally, I want to get paid for arrangements like that.
• It's about how we're going to relate. We both have to be able to talk about the work, and who's doing what.

This thread is an interesting synchronicity event for me. I've had people tell me I should "publish more" and "write more". Somewhat fewer have offered to "collaborate" which seems to mean "I'm going to tell you what you need to do to get more stuff published (Where I think it should be, looking like I think it should look, and with my spin on the ideas, btw." This past week, I've had someone offer to work with me very differently. "How can I help you get this stuff out there?" Totally different question.

- JimBullock, 2003.02.03

When I'm in my comfort zone, I enjoy working in flow. (I'd like to experiment with pair programming to see how flow adapts when two play.)

After a session in flow, I'm aware of my signature blindspots and seek someone to "walk thru" parts of work that have shared use. I like to use (and offer) a second set of eyes to uncover a "blinding flash of the obvious" that I couldn't see on my own.

I view this kind of collaboration as the cheapest way to obtain quality. Much more cost effective than "debugging until it works!"

--BobLee 2003.02.03

• Referring busines to others
• Writing with others
• Developing and presenting with others
• Working on client work with another colleague

Jim, when you were talking about writing with other people, you mentioned the "write about my good idea, ok?" syndrome. Congratulations! That means people think you're a great writer :-) I agree with you, if I'm supposed to write something down for other people, I expect to be paid for it. I don't necessarily expect to provide them any money.

I have some experience writing with several coauthors. Everyone has their own style, and finding ways to adapt my writing style to some authors has been difficult. I wrote an article with an SJ a few years ago. Painful for both of us, I think. My coauthor is an outliner -- he outlines in significant detail, and then fills in the last few paragraphs. I'm an NT, and start with the top 3 ideas I want to develop and then look to make sure there's an outline at the end so I haven't lost the SJs. Esther does this spiral-thing with many ideas and then she pulls it together. I write well with Esther and we both enjoy it.

What about working with other people? Do you prefer to work alone? To work with a group? What does it depend on?

Bob, when KeithRay and I did a little test-first development, I could see where he and I could have found flow together. I was too nervous to do so, but Keith was so easy about working with me, we could have gotten to flow with some more practice. Keith, what do you think? Was our problem too simple to accurately say this?

I find that when I'm not hung up on my ego, I'm much more likely to seek out and enjoy working with other people. That's the main thing it depends on for me. Plus enough money to support the work of more than one person. JohannaRothman 2003.02.04

Two responses:

(1) the great thing about test-first, is that the current problem is always "simple". Solving the current problem then makes solving the next problem easier. You know you're solving the wrong problem when it takes more than five minutes to make a test pass - that's when a partner can help in brainstorming another angle of attack. Also, since test-driven development separates "making it work" (get a test to pass) from "making it right", you and your partner can be focused on one little thing at a time.

"making it right" is appling one refactoring to make the design better, confirming that the test still passes, and then applying another refactoring, until nothing can be done to improve the code. This step should only take about five minutes at the most, but can take longer if the code has accumulated cruft or you're using C++, which can compile pretty slowly sometimes.

(2) Johanna and I could have easily attained "shared flow" because neither of us was being defensive... it's really hard to pair with someone who won't admit that his design / test / code could be improved.

The nervousness of the initial experience comes from not being familiar with the development environment, the programming language, the task and system being worked on, and the person. After a few days or a week, one should have achieved familiarity with all those factors.

KeithRay 2003.02.04

Building on Bob's thoughts. I find myself collaborating the way he described. And also sometimes, willingly, gladly doing exactly what I'm told in a very detailed fastion. (Really. Although it doesn't last long.) And sometimes bouncing something around and handing it off. It depends on the situation and the topic.

BTW, I left out a bullet in my list above:

• Who gets to decide what.

Consensus on everything? That takes work. My opinion always wins? Why are you here then? (There may be a reason, but it's not that.) Questions and understanding? Two of my favorite non-collaboration decision making approaches are:

• "I have an opinion and you don't get one" kinds of "collaboration." Often goes along with me doing all the work about someone's great idea. Again, I get paid for such stuff.
• You must do things exactly the way I imagine I would do things, producing exactly the result I imagine I would on the same task (which of course I didn't do, so what do I know.) Makes me wonder: Why am I here?

I find conversational kinds of collaborations really empowering. Like a wiki. I own my words. You own yours. The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. It's a very clear kind of: mine, yours, and ours division. Joint ownership of the one deliverable is a different structure. One assigned ownership of the deliverable is different again, and generally I expect consideration if that's the case. I would do such a thing for money. Also for what I'd learn.

- JimBullock, 2003.2.4

At the begining of the year Nynke Fokma and I started writing together. I had no idea what to expect, and we are writing to meet a deadline throughout the year for a computerworld.com column on Human Architecture. Nynke and I are both Ps - potential for danger. We have virtually no opportunity for face to face and only a rare phone call. I'm strongly driven to complete tasks I've committed to. I believe that Nynke is as well. A plus. But what about finding a style that meshes?

To my surprise we found that once we started exchanging our ideas the article formed VERY quickly. On reflecting, one of the aspects that helped was similar to Johanna'sand Keith's observation about being open to hearing critique, welcoming new ideas and letting your ego go take a walk for a while.

One technique we're still evolving is creating a "library" of story ideas, verbiage and structures. This started as an idea for keeping our flow of articles over the year in some sort of rhythm and also connected. (The year is young. Not sure how this will work.

- BeckyWinant 2-23-03

I wanted to find out if anyone (either internal or external consultants plus any others who want to participate) might be interested in a BOF session on this topic at the upcoming AYE gathering. Laurent Bossavit on the 14 January 2004 SHAPE Forum had a thread called Teaming Up that dealt briefly with the topic. Perhaps we can further expand on this subject and discuss in more detail on how consultants can collaborate on projects. I have purposely turned down large projects since I didn't have the right people and the right environment/circumstances to staff the projects.

- JohnSuzuki 2004.02.23

That thread was fairly short-lived as Shape threads go. It seems to me that, for some reason, the topic failed at that particular time to attract a "team" of contributors strongly motivated enough to keep the thread going.

Reflecting, I further find that past attempts to get the AYE folks talking together about various forms of "teaming up" (e.g. AyersWorkingTogether) waned before much output was produced.

I'm wondering about that. What do y'all think ?

LaurentBossavit 2003.2.24

I like the idea of a BOF about this at AYE this year. I've worked with Esther very successfully and with two other consultants much less successfully at clients. I've also successfully co-facilitated/spoke/whatever with ElisabethHendrickson, DonGray, JerryWeinberg, and I'm sure others. I've written with a bunch of people successfully. For me, working with others at a client requires that both of us "get" and "give" equally to the partnership. That is, I need to know that my ideas and deliverables are valuable and that I'm paid for that. I have a difficult time when someone wants a master/slave relationship. (Bet you're surprised at that :-)

Laurent,

I didn't know where to go with the AyersWorkingTogether thread. An amorphous "let's all work together thing" sounds too much to me like something I hear at least once a month. "Let's write an article." "Ok." "Here's an idea. You write it. I'll be co-author." Blech. Not my idea of working together.

If someone has a specific idea and it fits for me, I'll work together. But I don't know how to plan something without substance.

JohannaRothman 2004.02.24

So propose a specific idea that fits for you. Make an offer.

-- JimBullock, 2004.02.24

I'm not the one who propose the idea in the first place. Wasn't that you, Jim? Make us an offer. :-) JohannaRothman 2004.02.25

I made several offers. No takers so far on the specific ones. Multiple takers, yourself included on the meta-one, "about collaborating . . . " So, that seems to have worked.

I'm not sure if "make us an offer" is a friendly wisecrack, or a not so friendly wisecrack. Is there something else going on here between us?

-- JimBullock, 2004.02.24

I'm seeing a nice demonstration that collaborating takes more than a seemingly good idea. Perhaps this is a bit of an antidote for "I have an idea, you go write the article." which I get sometimes as well as you.

I'm stuck on further fleshing out the ideas that came up in the DiscussAyersCollaborationProject thread. For any I find interesting, I lack either an idea, or resources for a next step. If I make it to an AYE conference, I'll set up a "let's build something together" something, even if it's as small as a laptop server with wi-fi in my hotel room, or coding in the lounge over beers.

I'm OK with revisiting a "deferred, maybe later" job-jar from time to time. My whole life I've had more stuff that seemed like it would be interesting than I have had resources to do things. So, I'm kind of practiced at that. -- JimBullock, 2004.02.26

Sorry for the delay in responding. I was having write access problems to the Wiki that I only figured out recently (It was a cookie permission problem). I will go ahead and put some things together so a BOF can be held on this topic this year. I am interested in how to deal with financial issues during a collaboration, how to divide up the work in an equitable fashion, how to utilize each other's strengths, how to set ground rules for potential disagreements, how to get out of a bad collaboration, and how to choose a potential collaborator.

--JohnSuzuki, 2004.04.10

I like to try out a collaboration on something small, like an article or a short presentation, before I try out a collaboration where real money or client relationships are involved. That gives me information to decide whether to try something more substantial.

EstherDerby 041204

Johanna has re-published a great article on collaboration last week. It is located in the collection of articles. Maybe we can use this as a starting point for the BOF. See the following link:

http://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/Collaborating.html

--JohnSuzuki, 2004.05.06

What is true is that most people don't know much about how to collaborate, or don't think they know, even though collaboration is probably the one trait that most distinguishes human beings from other animals. So, a BOF could be terrific.

Here's an idea! How about two people on this thread agree to collaborate on putting on and promoting this BOF? And they make the goal of the BOF to:

1. Learn about how to collaborate.
   
   
2. Each person (who chooses to) leave the BOF with a collaborator, a project, and an agreement on how to work together.

- JerryWeinberg 2004.05.27

- HuwLloyd 2004.08.20

So...When I was little, I disliked my sister for all the usual sibling reasons. Yet we were forced to weed the garden together. She weeded differently than I did; she finished her job faster, my job was more thorough! So, was her method of getting the weeding done by chopping off the heads more successful at the time. After all, she got done first, and could play with friends. Or was my job of loosening the roots, and removing the weed better in the long run? And years later, did it matter HOW we weeded?

In our organization, then, is there a way to "blend the basics" so that the spirit of cooperation yields success, and the CEO says, "fine job". Do we only need to understand a set of BASIC ways to do a collaborative project? Do we easily define our ground rules in relationship building? Or do we just start probing all over the place?

And after time, does it really matter that I acted collaboratively? Or could the relationship bind the enemies?

RobertSteffen 2004.10.19

If Dave or Laurent read this and wish to contribute their thoughts on what worked and what didn't, it could shed some light on collaboration. I certainly felt enriched by the experience.

In terms of collaboration, my impression was that, as long as there were one or two people who were meeting the agreed-upon schedule of things to do, there was impetus for the others to participate. Once I and others started falling short of this consistently, the energy level dropped to near 0.

PatrickMorrison

John mentioned financial issues during a collaboration, how to divide up the work in an equitable fashion, how to utilize each other's strengths, how to set ground rules for potential disagreements, how to get out of a bad collaboration, and how to choose a potential collaborator.

I'd like to add another topic: how to pick a small enough idea for a first, trial collaboration. I've noticed a general tendency, in myself and others, to bite off more than we can chew.

I suspect that "courtship" usually precedes successful collaboration. So I had the whimsical thought that maybe we could treat this BOF partly as a sort of dating service for would-be collaborators. - StuartScott 2004.10.20

I have an idea for a collaboration project. I want to figure out how my colleagues and I can do a "high five" over the phone. Of course, there are a lot of other ways to share a positive emotion, but I don't mind starting with one.

This ties into the session on working with geographically dispersed teams. When you collaborate on conference calls and in email, the emotional range of expression becomes narrow and confining. In one-on-one calls, some level of emotional intimacy can work. But not in conference calls.

So I want to play around with ideas for spontaneous non-verbal expression of emotion on conference calls. Just the other day, a couple of colleagues showed the rest of us some work they'd been doing behind the scenes. I was delighted. I wanted to give them a high-five, or slap someone on the back, or maybe just do a victory arm-pump. My body wanted to express how it was feeling, and share the feeling with them.

Anyone share an interest in this problem? It could be fun to play with ideas to overcome it. StuartScott - 2004.11.05

--DaveLiebreich 2004.11.05