Sofia Svanbäck

50 Ways to Wreck Collaboration and What to do About it

, , ,

What do chickens, defensiveness and collaboration have in common? I think that was a question which certainly peaked our audiences interest. Our latest webinar on “50 Ways to Wreck Collaboration and What to do About it” was a great success. Regina Martins, Mariet Visser and myself, were so pleased to see so many join the session!

As you heard in the last webinar of this series, collaboration is not a team sport - initially! Effective collaboration is key to building strong relationships & navigating the working landscape. Let’s recap what collaboration is. Regina referenced researchers' Vreede, Briggs & Kolfschoten (2008) definition of collaboration as “collaboration is making joint effort towards a goal”. It sounds simple but it is deceptively so. In reality it is not so easy to get right.

Regina explains in her blogpost why she believes collaboration isn't just a learned skill, instead it requires an intimate knowledge of our own defensive behaviours. By being self-aware we can recognise when our behaviour is creating blockers to forming collaborative relationships. During her presentation, she tapped into 50 of these defensive behaviours. Regina ran a poll with the audience on some of these behaviours and it was interesting to learn which of these behaviours were the most common:

  • withdraw into deathly silence
  • sarcasm
  • high charge of energy in the body
  • fast breathing/heatbeat
  • wanting the last word

I think many of us can certainly relate to these.

As a guest in this webinar, Mariet delved into techniques & tips to improve collaboration. She mentions that collaboration is a skill we constantly need to work at and is something which evolves over time. As our context and the people with whom we work shifts, so does how we collaborate.

Our way of working together is not constant and is heavily influenced by our surroundings. For many of us over the past year, our surroundings have shifted from mostly in-person collaboration settings, to having to collaborate virtually. This has subsequently changed how many of our teams operate. - Mariet Visser

It is important to have a good collaborative environment, but how do we create one? Now more than ever before, Mariet thinks it comes down to being really explicit about how important collaboration is to the organization and to the team. These suggestions could act as a good starting point in creating a sound collaborative environment:

  • By creating transparency around what we do and what we want to achieve.
  • Having a shared vision, a shared goal, and collectively planning and executing the work that needs to happen in line with that goal.
  • Co-creating a working agreement with the team.
  • Frequently reflecting with the team on how we're working together to allow for continuous improvement.
  • Pairing on work where possible - this adds perspective & diversity.

You can read more tips and tricks from the blogpost & video of Mariet published prior to the webinar.

We shared some useful links with you during the live session, and I would like to share them again with you here in this post. Let’s start with our upcoming and past webinars, which you can find here on our website. Feel free to share around the recordings with friends/colleagues who missed the live sessions with us. 

We also mentioned our ICAgile Team Facilitation Certification (ICP-ATF) training designed to equip you with the necessary skills to create environments of high collaboration, passionate engagement, and where self-organization thrives. Mariet will be running the next remote training in May - we hope to see you there!

ICAgile Team Facilitation Certification

 

Stay up to date with all things Agile by following us on LinkedIn and subscribing to our monthly newsletter (scroll to bottom of page to sign up). As mentioned during the webinar, we’re launching our free agile42 Community! Join over a thousand agilists from around the world with a huge diversity of experiences, backgrounds and culture. Expand your toolbox within this unique, remote learning community.

If you missed the live session, don't panic! The recording is available online.
Feel free to watch it again and share with your network. It is also available on YouTube.

 

Below you will find the slides. Please also feel free to share around.

We hope you enjoyed the session and that we see you in our upcoming webinars. If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact us at any time!

/by
Amy Bridge

The best way to collaborate effectively: Part 2

Up next in our “collaboration” series, we have agile42 coach & trainer, Mariet Visser. Mariet is passionate about helping teams & organisations grow & succeed in their Agile journey. Being an ICAgile Authorised Instructor and trainer of our ICP-ATF classes, she is well versed in teaching how best to design meetings/workshops for better collaboration and to enable stronger focus on decisive outcomes. As such, we were keen to hear her take on the new collaborative environment we are finding ourselves in.

You can watch the full interview here:

What can you tell us about collaboration?

It’s a skill we constantly need to work at and is something which evolves over time. As our context and the people with whom we work shifts, so does how we collaborate. Our way of working together is not constant and is heavily influenced by our surroundings. For many of us over the past year, our surroundings have shifted from mostly in-person collaboration settings, to having to collaborate virtually. This has subsequently changed how many of our teams operate.

Do you think collaborating is more difficult now?

Absolutely. I think collaboration heavily relies on trust and our ability to be open & honest with one another; something that can be much more difficult to achieve in a virtual setting. A year ago, most of our collaboration happened in-person, now we need to collaborate virtually and that’s another skill we need to learn and hone. We need to adapt and find new ways in which to collaborate. In my experience it’s really our social relationships that help us to succeed in collaborating, so maintaining them virtually is a challenge. 

How do we create a collaborative environment?

Now more than ever before, I think it comes down to being really explicit about how important collaboration is to the organization and to the team. 

  • By talking about it.
  • By putting structures in place for collaboration.
  • Exploring ways in which we can collaborate.
  • By modelling the behaviour we want to see as leaders.
  • Leading by example.
  • Making it a part of who we are.

We often today see organisations designing their physical spaces for improved collaboration, having huddle spaces, colourful relaxed and less formal spaces for individual or group use etc. We need to be equally conscious about designing our virtual space for improved collaboration. For instance using a tool that enables variance in how we’re able to engage at a communication level, such as Zoom with it’s breakout rooms, offering us the ability to chat as one large group, or split out into smaller groups and/or have pair conversations when necessary.

From a work perspective, it’s important to make use of tools which enable synchronous collaboration between colleagues. For example, Google Suite or Miro are great online visual collaboration platforms which we at agile42 make use of internally as well as with our clients.

Watch the recording of Mariet's webinar on "50 Ways to Wreck Collaboration and What to do About it".

*Click here to read Part 1 blog post* 

/by
Amy Bridge

The best way to collaborate effectively: Part 1

ICAgile Team Facilitation Certification

This month, we will be launching our new monthly themed approach. Each month we will pick a hot topic where you will be treated to videos, blog posts & webinars from our awesome agile42 coaches. 

Up first for March is, all things "collaboration". Effective collaboration is key to building strong relationships & navigating the working landscape. If you have a burning topic you would like us to cover, please do get in touch!

Our South African based coach & trainer, Regina Martins, kicks off the first of a two part video style interview. We asked her a couple of questions, giving you a sneak peak into what our March webinar has in store for you. But first let’s recap what collaboration is. In our first webinar on collaboration, Regina referenced researchers Vreede, Briggs & Kolfschoten (2008) definition of collaboration as “collaboration is making joint effort towards a goal”. It sounds simple but it is deceptively so. In reality it is not so easy to get right. Collaboration is about:

  • Having a win-win mindset and staying focused on mutual gains
  • Creating an environment where people feel safe to deal directly with problems
  • Taking responsibility for the choices one makes
  • Being aware of yourself and others

As you can see from the points above, successful team collaboration is first and foremost about the individuals in the team.

Regina explains why she believes collaboration isn't just a learned skill, instead it requires an intimate knowledge of our own defensive behaviours. By being self-aware we can recognise when our behaviour is creating blockers to forming collaborative relationships. She will be tapping into 50 of these defensive behaviours in her webinar.

Lastly, we asked her what she felt the connection was between defensiveness and collaboration. When we're defensive, our IQ drops by 20 points and the last thing we want to do at this point is to collaborate. You may want to retreat, shout at the person, or engage in conflict – ultimately collaboration goes out the window!

You can watch the full interview recording below:

Watch the recording of Regina's webinar on "50 Ways to Wreck Collaboration and What to do About it".

We hope you found this video valuable. Stay tuned for Part 2 later this month!

/by
Joanne Perold

Achieving Flow in Remote Meetings

, , ,

Remote meetings can suffer from what we refer to as "traffic jam effects." Maybe someone's internet is dropping, and you keep having to repeat something, or maybe the general pace seems that much slower. These kinds of experiences impact our ability to collaborate remotely.

In our webinar, on the 6th of November, we looked at this problem from a few different angles. We began by looking at some high-level information on the trends of remote work, pre and post COVID. We briefly mentioned our 7 principles for remote facilitation and narrowed in on one, Enable Flow, which was the focus of this webinar. 

Many things can happen in a remote meeting which contribute to the feeling of “stuckness”. For example; technical challenges can interrupt flow as the group waits while information needs to be repeated. Similarly people speaking at the same time or feeling like they can't speak up can create a sense of getting “stuck”. 

If we look outside of meetings to better understand this experience, traffic jams provide a helpful analogy. Sometimes we can see the destination, but progress towards it is painfully slow, and when that happens, it can be super frustrating. It can cause us to feel like getting out of the car and just leaving it there in favour of walking to our destination. Maybe we get frustrated and angry; maybe our chest starts to tighten. It turns out that when we get stuck in remote meetings, our brain might be experiencing some of these same things. 

Our brains are wired to make the experience of closing feedback loops rewarding: it feels good to reach resolutions/achieve “aha” moments. However, if something inhibits us from this closure, the opposite becomes true, frustration, disengagement and fatigue often creep in. 

This is why it's so important to think about enabling flow in remote meetings. And what happens when we get stuck: we want to avoid conditions which lead to disengagement, fatigue, and frustration. We examined the 4 categories of stuckness, and gave some practical methods which can be used to achieve flow in remote meetings. 

Technical 

  1. Agree on a back channel before hand
  2. Co-create visual documentation
  3. Troubleshoot e.g (maybe switching off camera works) 

Ambiguity

  1. Make agenda and session rules visible
  2. Visible instructions
  3. Visually validate outcomes
  4. Root participants in the present

Comprehension

  1. Allow people quiet time to think
  2. Provide participation via writing
  3. Make meeting artifacts visual
  4. Pause and check understanding

Digital fatigue

  1. Make space for breaks
  2. Use energy queues
  3. Consider async

 

Here you can find the slides from the presentation.

The recording is available on YouTube. Please feel free to share around with your network:)

 

In our Remote Facilitation Practitioner training kicking off on the 17th November 2020, we will deep dive into more of the principles for remote design and offer real practices that you can put to use immediately. The training includes practical sessions and feedback to help you improve. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

*Follow this link to view upcoming & past webinars on our website*

/by
Sofia Svanbäck

agile42 meets Swedbank – in a webinar

, , , , , , , , ,

As many of you might have seen, agile42, along with our long-standing client, Swedbank, wrote a Success Story about our journey together. Ever since we've been keen to host a webinar on this, to tell the story! We had the honour of inviting Cecilia Kåhrström to join the webinar with us, where she, together with agile42Sweden's, Giuseppe De Simone, walked the audience through the work we did together. 

The journey has been long: some parts of the work with Swedbank began back in 2014. This webinar and the Success Story, specifically focused on the work with Group IT, which started in 2018. A lot has been done together since then, and we are happy to say that we today can call Cecilia and all Group IT leaders and employees, not clients, but friends. 

In the picture below, Cecilia summarized all the activities that supported the achievement of their current level of agility and we are particularly proud of the bubbles on the right. In fact they show the things which Swedbank continued on their own after we left, witnessing the accomplishment of our mission: grow our clients’ capabilities so that they are able to persevere on their path to agility sustainably after we leave.

The discussion between Cecilia and Giuseppe opened up these topics. 

A particular focus was given to one of the most important factors in this Success Story: how the leaders understood early on that agility could not be achieved just by buying and deploying a predefined process. It was amazing to observe how fast they got this clear understanding compared to other leaders we've met that are just looking for a pre-packaged solution. Every organization that is interested in becoming sustainably agile needs to make this journey on their own: you should not worry about reinventing the wheel, because the journey is more important than the goal.

The slides from the webinar can be found here. You are welcome to have a look at them, and for any questions you have, you can turn to us.

This webinar broke our record with questions from the audience. We had more questions than we could answer. From the recording you can hear the answers that we managed to get to live.

If you missed the live webinar, the recording is available here! It is also available on YouTube. Please have a look at it and feel free to share it around with friends and colleagues.

We hope that you enjoyed this Success Story. For any questions, feel free to reach out to us!

*Follow this link to view upcoming & past webinars on our website*

/by
Sofia Svanbäck

agile42 and Divimove

, , , ,

agile42 + Divimove reference video

agile42's CEO and Founder, Andrea Tomasini, spoke with Tobias Schiwek, the CEO of Divimove, about how Divimove has grown in resilience through agility, with the help of agile42. This discussion has been recorded as a reference video. A fun way to share client experiences and the work that we do!

Divimove, Europes leading digital studio, has recently gone through a major merge, and as a result has had to overcome challenges within the new organization. One of the hurdles was the merging of teams and finding a way of working together. Divimove's aim was not only to grow in numbers, however, also to grow in a coherent way.

The video covers the early days of agile42 & Divimove's collaboration, along with how we helped them visualise their work as well as tools we used to support their transition. Alignment and getting people on the same page was one particular challenge. We found that supporting the new culture and structure became critical, and in the video you will hear in more detail what the outcome of working with agile42 in only 6 months looks like.

Check out the video and listen to the story of Divimove!

/by
Regina Martins

Five Essential Skills for Successful Collaborative Relationships

, ,

I thoroughly enjoyed hosting the first of a series of webinars centred around "collaboration". We had people from all around the world listening in :)

In focusing on the importance of collaboration in building a great team, I delved into the five essential skills for successful collaborative relationships:

  • Collaborative intention
  • Truthfulness
  • Self-accountability
  • Awareness of self & others
  • Problem solving & negotiating

"Collaboration is making joint effort towards a goal" - Vreede, Briggs & Kolfschoten, 2008

As promised we would like to share with you the recording of the session:

There were a couple of questions we didn't manage to get to. Specifically one of the participants wanted to find out where he could find more information on "Magic 21" (aka CDE configuration). I believe the best source for this is here - What’s Magic About Magic 21?

Another participant wanted to know where she could read up on "Conflict Circles". I would recommend checking out this link.

As mentioned in the webinar, I'm a Certified Radical Collaboration® Trainer. The 3-day Radical Collaboration® training is a deeply experiential, transformational course and as such ideally needs to be conducted face-to-face. We will likely only be running this training face-to-face again in 2021. Until such time we can offer this training, we can instead offer a remote 1-day Building Collaborative Skills workshop (Powered by Radical Collaboration®). To learn more about this workshop please contact [email protected]. 

Lastly be sure to catch my next webinar on "Defensiveness". We'll be posting this on Meetup and across our social media channels soon!

Thank you for joining us and we hope to "see" you next time!

*Follow this link to view upcoming & past webinars on our website*

/by