Engaged Youth » collaboration reflections

Posts filed under 'collaboration reflections'

Reflecting on Team Work

I’ve observed that this team has multiple ways of working together and many different areas, and I find it fascinating how this comes together and translates into action. Note that I come from a highly organized corporate culture where there’s always control on time, budget, and human resources. Normally I’m used to having a project lead/director who is in charge of centralizing and organizing the vision, tasks, deliverables and resources.

Here are some thoughts about this structure, and actions I will incorporate going forward. Please feel free to give me feedback:

Pros:

It engages people at a personal level
Free flow collaboration
Fosters independent action
People can contribute as much or as little as they want
Communications lines are open
Organic configuration that can adapt as project grows and evolves
Everything has equal importance

Cons:

Hard to build and keep track of common vision and understanding of how it all fits together (is there a work breakdown system diagram somewhere???)
Unclear decision process (when and who needs to be present, when to use blog vs meetings, who can veto decisions, who can revisit/challenge a decision already taken)
How to determine how many people join, when, and what role they play
Hard to keep focus on results: what are next steps are for different members and expected deliverables
Unclear what is out of scope

Going Forward:
1.Frame Discussion: Because there’s different meetings and people involved, I see the need to spend a little time always giving a bit of background:

what I’m doing
why
how it connects to the rest of the stuff
clarify what I want from people (an opinion, a decision, collaboration, etc).
clarify whether I’m opening a “vision, long term discussion” or ” right-now, immediate action thing.

2. Decision Log: Deen’s idea was great and I’m keen to start using it after every meeting.

Questions: