Following my post here in February, What makes collaboration “radical”?, some folks reached out to me about the tools I use in my courses to support and teach teamwork. I promised to share some ideas on just this topic, and because I missed posting in March by two days (oops), I’m going to break this up into at least two parts. Read on for Part 1!
Yes, you can teach teamwork.
I’m always intrigued (and often maddened) by observations that some things just can’t be taught. These things are most often what we traditionally have referred to as “soft skills,” and teamwork is on the list. Two truths I hope we can soon embrace: one, these skills are far from soft (whatever that’s supposed to even mean). They’re in fact quite powerful, and admittedly can be hard to learn. And two, they most certainly can be taught.
I observe that being hard to learn is often a consequence of no one actually trying to teach them with intention. So it’s less about humans’ ability to learn the skills and more about how we devalue them with pejorative labels and pretty much fail to integrate meaningful opportunities to learn them into anything we do.
So, I suppose I’m on somewhat of a mission to inject meaningful opportunities to learn these critical POWER skills into all of my work. And teamwork is at the top of the list.
Here, I share a couple of the tools I’ve used very successfully in my courses, to orient students around the foundations for successful team collaboration. I like these particular tools because students can take them into the real world and use them. And, I’m getting feedback from former students that they’re doing this!
Both of the following tools are used at the beginning of a semester-long team project that a small team (typically 3 to 5 students) works on. The tools are used to kick off the project and help the team create meaningful ways of working that support the project objectives and the humans doing the work.
These are tools that real teams in real working environments use to do all kinds of complex work. I offer them to anyone who wants to teach teamwork skills, whether to students or professional colleagues.
I pair these tools with research-based content about effective teamwork that students consume and we discuss at the outset of the team project. I’ll talk more about this in Part #2 of this series.
The Teamwork Tools
These tools help a team figure out more about each other — the who — along with how they’re going to work together.
Project Point of Departure. For many years I’ve used this Project Point of Departure (PPD) process from Hyper Island. Depending on the project, I modify the prompts for teams to cover in Step 4. Also depending on the project, I may offer examples for roles the team chooses to adopt (part of Step 4). Hyper Island’s description of the PPD process is why we use it:
This is a method for individuals and teams to define the structure, direction and first steps of a project. The individual or team works through a set of questions and documents the answers in a sharable digital format. This can either be a “living” document that develops with the project, or it can be left as just a clear and concise record of the starting-point.
The simple act of thinking through a project as a team at the outset can be tremendously powerful and a predictor of project success. This is a valuable skill, one that can be taught. Using a framework like the PPD process helps me teach it.
I know it works when students take the process with them into the “real world” and teach it to others.
Team Charter Canvas. In a similar way, the Team Charter Canvas (TCC) via the folks at Design a Better Business takes teams through a formation process to set everyone up for collaborative success. I’ve started using this for some course projects and am getting equally good feedback from students on its value and efficacy. Its creators describe it thusly:
You don’t always get to decide with whom you work with. Even if you do, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be successful. Conflicts of interest and differing values or goals often get in the way of a team’s progress. A team charter will help you create a blueprint for the engine behind a project: a well-balanced team. As a co-created document, the team charter will help clarify the team’s direction while establishing boundaries.
The TCC doesn’t dig as deep as the PPD process into project process details. As I experiment with using it, I’m considering developing a custom canvas that combines what seems to work really well from both approaches. I’ll update this post to share, when and if I realize this goal.
What’s the point of these tools?
Simple: it’s to teach folks an easy way to come together as a team and co-create a foundation to support a project’s success. Both the PPD and TCC are easily modified to suit the goals of a particular project and team and lend themselves to various collaborative platforms. For instance, when using the PPD I often create a google doc the team shares for recording its project process plan. The TCC works really well using a virtual whiteboard like Google’s jamboard, Miro, or Mural.
Of course, my favorite way is to break out the post-its, sharpies, and print out the process or canvas on giant paper and do the work IRL.
And, these tools work best when coupled with an intentional exploration of what research reveals about effective teamwork. This will be our deep dive in Part #2!
In the meantime, if you have favorite tools for teaching and doing teamwork, please share. In the comments below, or ping me directly. Thanks!
Until next time,
Cat
c.moon@vanderbilt.edu