Being in the Room: Lessons Learned in Collaboration

by Alistair Cockburn

If enterprises hope to thrive in today’s constantly evolving business environment, they will have to innovate. And to innovate, their knowledge workers are going to have to work together — to collaborate — to meet market opportunities with competitive products and services. But while collaboration relies on open communication and an atmosphere of trust, it doesn’t mean sitting in a circle holding hands and singing Kumbaya. In this issue, we’ll discuss how you can promote collaboration in your organization to produce business results. Hear about one team that was handed a project a year behind schedule and a quarter-million dollars in the hole. After collaboratively replanning the entire project, self-assigning tasks, and fending off the command-and-control encroachments of the larger organization, the team delivered the project within budget and ahead of schedule. Discover how to "lift others" and "increase safety" in order to maximize people’s contributions, but also how to close down discussions that have gone off topic so you can continue to make progress. There’s a fine line between "Two heads are better than one" and "Too many cooks spoil the broth" — join us and learn how you can walk that line.