Chapter Extension 1 Improving Your Collaboration Skills Study
Chapter Extension 1 Improving Your Collaboration Skills
Study Questions Q 1: Q 2: Q 3: Q 4: Why learn collaboration skills? What is collaboration? What is an effective team? What skills are important for effective collaboration? Q 5: What characterizes productive conflict? Q 6: How can you improve your collaboration skills? Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -2
Q 1: Why Learn Collaboration Skills? • Collaboration is a key business skill in the twenty-first century • Distributed collaborative teams are becoming increasingly common • Collaboration skills will help project teams become more productive, do better work, and waste less time. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -3
Q 2: What Is Collaboration? • Collaboration occurs when two or more people work together to achieve a common goal, result, or work product • Requires: communicating, sharing information, sharing knowledge, combining skills, sharing time • Cooperation is not collaboration Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -4
Importance of Feedback and Iteration Step 1 – One person produces something Step 2 – Others review and comment Step 3 – If changes needed, make changes Step 4 – If changes made, go to Step 2; otherwise stop Ø Collaboration takes several weeks, not a few hours or days Ø It takes time to create a collaborative team Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -5
Critical Collaboration Drivers • Communication – Two key elements: 1. Communication skills and group member abilities 2. Availability of effective communication systems • Content management – – Who made what changes, when, why Rights to create, edit, delete, and read-only content privileges may vary • Workflow control – – Specifies ordering of tasks, processes for handling rejected changes and dealing with exceptions Often not needed for one-time, ad hoc groups working on short-term project Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -6
Q 3: What Is an Effective Team? Hackman’s three characteristics of team effectiveness: 1. Accomplish goals and objectives that satisfy sponsors and clients 2. Over time, working together is easier and more effective 3. Members learn and feel fulfilled Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -7
Accomplishing Goals and Objectives • Business world goals and objectives seldom clearly defined, no definite answer • Team must create common understanding of goals and objectives Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -8
Improve the Ability for the Team to Work Together • Learn each others’ strengths and how to best use them • Learn weaknesses, hot buttons and how to avoid or manage them • Learn to give and receive critical feedback • Come to respect and trust each other Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -9
Learning and Fulfillment • Team should foster personal learning and positive feelings from working with group • Provide sense of belonging • Facilitate developing new friendships Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -10
Q 4: What Skills Are Important for Effective Collaboration? Team member behavior influenced by: – – – Natural skills and abilities Childhood formative environment Past team experiences Attitude (and skill) of team leader Nature of the work and its relationship to member interests and abilities Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -11
What Qualities, Attitudes, and Skills Help Make a Good Collaborator? Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -12
Q 5: What Characterizes Productive Conflict? • Identify differences in perspective and decide if those differences are consequential • Understand that rational people have different perspectives based on: – Understanding task differently – Having different experience – Having different knowledge • Use empathetic thinking – strive to hear, learn, and adapt, when appropriate • Avoid personal attacks • Agree on a common set of criteria for evaluating and choosing alternatives Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -13
Q 6: How Can You Improve Your Collaboration Skills? • Show up. . . get involved • Assess yourself • Try new behaviors. . . and watch what happens • Keep Hackman’s three characteristics of team effectiveness in mind • Engage in productive conflict • Ask for feedback and listen to it • Keep at it Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -14
Active Review Q 1: Q 2: Q 3: Q 4: Why learn collaboration skills? What is collaboration? What is an effective team? What skills are important for effective collaboration? Q 5: What characterizes productive conflict? Q 6: How can you improve your collaboration skills? Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall CE 1 -15
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 16
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