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Collaboration Engineering

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Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation

Part of the book series: Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation ((AGDN,volume 4))

Abstract

Collaboration is a critical process in modern organizations. Many organizations would benefit from access to advanced collaboration technologies (see chapters by Ackermann and Eden and Lewis and Garcia, this volume) and collaboration professionals, such as facilitators (see the chapter by Ackermann and Eden, this volume). However, these technologies are often too complex to effectively use without professional support and collaboration professionals are often too expensive to use on a frequent basis. Collaboration Engineering is an approach to designing collaborative work practices for high-value recurring tasks, and deploying those designs for practitioners to execute for themselves without ongoing support from professional facilitators. Collaboration engineers design collaborative work practices using a facilitation pattern language consisting of “thinkLets” – facilitation best practices that predictably create patterns of collaboration (see for example chapter by Vogel and Coombes, this volume). Experiences demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach. This chapter describes and illustrates the Collaboration Engineering approach and thinkLet concept in detail using an illustrative case in a governmental organization

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten

  2. Center for Collaboration Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, 68182–0116, USA

    Gert-Jan de Vreede

  3. Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Gert-Jan de Vreede

  4. Center for Collaboration Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, 68182–0116, USA

    Robert O. Briggs

Authors
  1. Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten
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  2. Gert-Jan de Vreede
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  3. Robert O. Briggs
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Mathematics, Wilfrid Laurier University, University Ave. W. 75, Waterloo, N2L 3C5, Canada

    D. Marc Kilgour

  2. Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0QU, United Kingdom

    Colin Eden

Appendices

Appendix A

Below we summarize several thinkLets. Note that these are not full descriptions of the thinkLets, as would be too extensive for the purpose of this chapter.

LeafHopper (Generate)

When to use:

  • When you know in advance that the team must brainstorm on several topics at once.

  • When you want them to generate depth and detail on a focused set of topics.

  • When different participants will have different levels of interest or expertise in the different topics.

  • Summary: People brainstorm ideas in several categories to set the scope of the brainstorm. Each participant writes and idea which answers both the brainstorming question and fits the category. Participants are free to move from category to category to add ideas where they have expertise or inspiration.

  • Example: Brainstorm on the implications of a new political policy on four different organizational processes.

  • Execution: Pose a brainstorm question. Create one page for each topic of discussion, each page labeled with its category name. Participants must be able to see any page at will, must be able to read the contributions of others and must be able to add contributions to any page.

GoldMiner (Reduce)

When to use:

  • To sift through many contributions to a brainstorming session and set aside those worthy of further attention.

  • When it is important to give every team member the opportunity to select issues for further discussion.

  • Summary: People select the most interesting ideas from the set of ideas generated by the group and move them to a specific page.

  • Example: selecting the key implications of a new political policy from a broad brainstorm of implications and effects.

  • Execution: Create two pages, one with the original set of contributions and one empty for the selected contributions. Enable all participants to move contributions from the original set to the empty page. Enable all to see both pages.

ExplainIt (Clarify)

When to use:

  • To increase clarity and shared understanding of contributions that are considered unclear.

  • As a preparation for further evaluation or elaboration of contributions.

  • Summary: Participants review a page of contributions for clarity. When a participant judges a contribution to be vague or ambiguous, s/he requests clarification. Other group members offer explanations, and the group agrees to a shared definition. If necessary, the group revises the contribution to better convey its meaning.

  • Example: clarification of proposed technological solutions for the support of a common work practice.

  • Execution: Enable all participants to view the contributions, enable participants to draw attention to contributions that need clarification, enable focused discussion on each selected contribution, enable a reviser to edit the contribution for the group based on consensus.

PopcornSort (Organize)

When to use:

  • To quickly organize an unstructured set of 50–1000 brainstorming comments into related clusters.

  • To verify if brainstorming results cover a certain scope.

  • Summary: Participants move ideas from a generic list to specifically distinguished and labeled clusters. They work in parallel on a fist comes first served basis.

  • Example: to cluster implications of a solution to different organizational processes.

  • Execution: Enable each participant to move items from a general page to the pages of the different categories, both visible for all.

StrawPoll (Evaluate)

When to use:

  • To measure consensus within a group.

  • To reveal patterns of agreement or disagreement within a group.

  • To assess or evaluate a set of concepts.

  • Summary: Moderator posts a page of unevaluated contributions. Participants are instructed to rate each item on a designated scale using designated criteria. Participants are told that they are not making a decision, just getting a sense of the group’s opinions to help focus subsequent discussion.

  • Example: rating the impact of a set of new solutions on the feasibility of the entire project.

  • Execution: Enable each participant to vote anonymously using a pre-defined scale and criterion, enable automatic aggregation of the results and enable analysis and explanation of the voting results.

Crowbar (Consensus Building)

  • When to use:

    • To surface and examine assumptions.

    • To share unshared information.

    • To reveal hidden agendas.

  • Summary: To provoke a focused discussion about issues where the group has a low consensus. After a vote, the moderator draws the group’s attention to the items with the most disagreement. Group members discuss the reasons why someone might give an item a high rating, and why someone might give the item a low rating. The resulting conversation reveals unchallenged assumptions, unshared information, conflicts of goals, and other information useful to moving toward consensus.

  • Example: discuss the reasons for disagreement with respect to the feasibility of different solutions for an organizational problem.

  • Execution: Enable each participant to view the standard deviation of the voting results, enable focused discussion on issues with a high standard deviation.

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Kolfschoten, G.L., de Vreede, GJ., Briggs, R.O. (2010). Collaboration Engineering. In: Kilgour, D., Eden, C. (eds) Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation. Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9097-3_21

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