Continuously improve collaboration
Use visual aids to improve communication
Build trust and strong relationships
Use facilitation skills to guide team
Focus on facilitating collaboration
About the author
Summary
Regular retrospectives can help teams reflect on their collaboration and identify areas for improvement.
Why it's important: Collaboration is an ongoing process that requires continuous improvement. By regularly reflecting on their collaboration and seeking feedback from team members, project leaders can identify areas for improvement and make changes to improve collaboration and productivity.
How to implement it: Conduct regular retrospectives to reflect on collaboration and identify areas for improvement. Use feedback from team members to guide changes and improvements, and make collaboration a continuous process of learning and growth.
Visual aids such as diagrams, mind maps, and flow charts can help team members understand complex information and improve collaboration by providing a shared understanding of the project.
Why it's important: In software projects, there is often a lot of complex information that needs to be communicated and shared among team members. Visual aids can help simplify this information, making it easier for team members to understand and collaborate effectively.
How to implement it: Use visual aids such as diagrams, mind maps, and flow charts to communicate complex information and improve collaboration. Encourage team members to use these tools as well, and provide training and resources to help them develop their visual communication skills.
Strong relationships among team members can lead to better collaboration, improved communication, and increased productivity.
Why it's important: Building trust and strong relationships among team members is essential for effective collaboration in software projects. When team members trust each other and have strong relationships, they are more likely to communicate openly, share ideas, and work together to achieve shared goals.
How to implement it: Build trust and strong relationships among team members by encouraging open communication, providing opportunities for team members to get to know each other, and recognizing and rewarding teamwork and collaboration.
Facilitation skills can help guide teams through decision-making processes by encouraging open communication, identifying and addressing conflicts, and ensuring that all team members are heard and their opinions are considered.
Why it's important: In software projects, decision-making can be complex and involve multiple stakeholders with different priorities and opinions. By using facilitation skills to guide team decision-making, project leaders can ensure that decisions are made collaboratively and with the best interests of the project in mind.
How to implement it: Use facilitation techniques such as active listening, summarizing, and asking open-ended questions to guide team decision-making. Encourage all team members to contribute their opinions and perspectives, and work to address conflicts and reach consensus.
A project leader may focus on completing tasks and meeting deadlines, but facilitating collaboration is key to success in software projects.
Why it's important: Collaboration is essential in software projects, where multiple teams and stakeholders must work together to achieve success. By focusing on facilitating collaboration, project leaders can improve communication, build trust, and ensure that all team members are aligned and working towards the same goals.
How to implement it: Prioritize facilitating collaboration by creating a safe environment for team members to communicate, setting clear goals and expectations, and using collaborative techniques such as brainstorming and retrospectives.
Use facilitation skills to guide team
Use facilitation skills to guide team
Focus on facilitating collaboration
Build trust and strong relationships
Who is it for?
Focus on facilitating collaboration
"Collaboration Explained" by Jean Tabaka is a guide for software project leaders to effectively facilitate collaboration and communication within their teams. The book provides practical advice, case studies, and tools for improving teamwork, decision-making, and problem-solving. It emphasizes the importance of empathy, trust, and mutual respect in fostering a collaborative environment, and offers techniques for managing conflict and encouraging participation from all team members. Overall, "Collaboration Explained" is a valuable resource for anyone involved in software development or project management looking to improve collaboration and achieve better outcomes.
Jean Tabaka is an Agile Coach with Rally Software Development, where she specializes in creating, coaching, and mentoring collaborative, agile software teams. With over 25 years of experience in software development, Jean has worked in a variety of organizational contexts, including internal IT departments, ISVs, government agencies, and consulting organizations. She has implemented both plan-driven and agile development approaches for companies such as Sybase, Siebel Systems, and Qwest, as well as a variety of smaller ventures, spanning industries and continents.
As an agile mentor, Jean coaches software teams through training and facilitation to adopt agile principles and practices, using a hybrid of the leading agile methods. With a passion for collaboration practices and facilitation techniques, she guides organizations in creating high-performance teams. Jean is the co-author of "Physical Database Design for Sybase SQL Server" (Prentice Hall, 1995) and is a frequent lecturer and contributor on the topic of collaboration practices in agile teams.
Jean is a Certified ScrumMaster, Certified ScrumMaster Trainer, and Certified Professional Facilitator. She holds a Master of Arts from Michigan State University and a Master of Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.
Build trust and strong relationships
Continuously improve collaboration
Use visual aids to improve communication
Continuously improve collaboration
Use visual aids to improve communication
Jean Tabaka
Collaboration Explained
Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders
Product design, Collaboration