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How-to Strategies
Listed below are a handful of strategies that will help you develop, maintain and empower your collaboration. Many of these tactics should be emphasized early on in your collaboration to help develop a strong foundation that will support the various efforts of your collaboration and its ultimate success. Others are important to the ongoing maintenance and strengthening of your collaboration.
The following sections break down the strategies to developing a successful collaboration into six main categories which have more information on how to achieve success in a collaborative.
Elements to Strengthen Your Collaboration
1. Succinct and Flexible Purpose
A collaboration’s purpose is the reason for its creation: The purpose is the ultimate result that the collaboration desires. It is important to establish a solid mutual purpose to build the foundation of your collaboration and to ensure that all members are equally informed, in agreement and committed.
2. Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities
Distinct and meaningful roles form the collaborative foundation and ensure that the items listed in your work plan are accomplished effectively. Clarity and trust in each individual’s roles and responsibilities are important to avoid members encroaching on the responsibilities of others or omitting necessary tasks, and to make sure that members’ unique roles and expertise are utilized.
Individual Respect and Responsibilities
3. Formal Policies and Procedures
Policies and procedures help regulate your collaboration’s activities and events so that consistency and effectiveness are maintained. They also minimize confusion and conflict and establish trust and agreement, all important factors in building and maintaining a collaboration over time.
4. Open and Frequent Communication
As collaborations advance and differences emerge, regular open communication will facilitate progress and minimize miscommunications. Involving all collaborative members in communication efforts and encouraging the exchange of ideas and information will also motivate members to achieve goals and objectives and increase productivity, buy-in and trust. A communications plan will ease the communications process.
5. Strong and Sustainable Relationships
It is important to build relationships to strengthen the partnership and commitment to mutual goals. While each of the categories listed in this section contributes to relationship maintenance, relationships are the cornerstone of a collaboration and extra time should be allotted to develop them. Communication beyond work and organizational matters will facilitate trust and motivation.
Fostering Inter-Organizational Relationships
Giving Credit and Showing Appreciation
6. Ongoing Evaluation
Implementation of a feedback system is critical in keeping the collaboration on track and satisfying both collaboration needs and individuals’ wishes. Feedback should measure progress and members’ responses to the process in order to guarantee improvement and productivity.
