Project e-Tip of the Week: Collaborate; Really Collaborate

April 28th, 2004 by Hal

Too much of our time on projects is spent working alone. Programmers code by themselves. Estimators estimate by themselves. Architects detail alone. To make it worse, many companies have erected closed spaces — offices with closed doors, cubicles with 6′ walls — and other impediments for making collaboration the usual practice. Project work so often requires innovation and learning. Both occur in a social context. That context is collaboration.

The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week

025: Collaborate, Really Collaborate

Whether you believe two are smarter than one, or three are smarter than two, all but trivial projects depend on more than one person to complete. Large projects might number in the thousands of performers. Why isolate people from each other. Learning and innovation are both social processes. Judgement also benefits from broad perspectives and experience. Here are 5 questions to get you started to make collaboration your habit:

Who could help me with this?
What do I have to offer others?
What new ways can we meet on a regular basis?
How can we stay in tune with each others' changing project work?
What can you do to be more responsive to each other?

Share this e-Tip with your team at your next meeting. Use the five questions to generate actions you will take as a group. Revisit how you are doing each time you meet.

The Project Leaders' Studio™

Write me about your experience with this and feel free to share this Project e-Tip with others.

Project Collaboration Requires Intent and a Shared Language

Ten Rules for Project Managers (Project e-Tip 034)

Produce Alignment and Trust in the Stories You Tell

Collaborate

Ten New Rules for Project Managers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2004 at 6:15 pm and is tagged: PM practice, tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Convert this post to a PDF document.

Social Bookmarking

Comment On This

If you haven't left a comment here before, you will need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.

On the Side

Humility Makes Toyota Different
02/20/2008

From the Lean Insider: Speaking to Toyota employees at the Detroit Auto Show President Watanabe asked that they take responsibility for recent quality problems.

"I do not regard the problem as something that suppliers are responsible for. We must work together so that we are fully aware of where suppliers are."

Bernstein closes saying, "At Toyota, they know that doing the best job of serving the customer is what makes the company profitable."

Lean Project Management
02/19/2008

Brad Appleton reviewed Lean Project Management, by L Leach concluding, "I found Lean Project Management to be a fairly quick read providing a good overview of some TOC and CCPM fundamentals and how they align with Lean thinking."

Claude Emond, Guest Blogger
01/11/2008

I'm glad to have Claude posting at RPM. It was Claude who gave name to these wonder filled times -- the project age. Please welcome him with your comments.

Toyota Bests Ford in 2007
01/07/2008

WSJ reported, "Ford and GM reported lower December sales, capping off annual declines of 12% and 6%, respectively. Toyota's 2007 sales (in US) rose 3.1% even amid tough competition and signs that the U.S. consumer is beginning to labor in a slowing economy."

Brush-Up on Lean Thinking
01/07/2008

Re-familiarize yourself with the principles and practices of lean with Lean for Dummies. Do it to put yourself in new action!

Increase Reliability Saying No
10/14/2007

Make every "Yes" count, Learn to Say, "No".

White Mountains in Autumn
10/04/2007
Eat your heart out! Beauteous!

Tips for (Project) Managers
08/26/2007

Inside CRM offers The Manager's Cheat Sheet. Here are three of the best: