Collaborative Culture Camp

October 15, 2010

Library and Archives Canada

Notes by Tanya Snook, @spydergrrl http://spydergrrl.com

Keynote: ADM from Library and Archives (Jean-Stephane)

Value of Collaboration: collaboration for collaboration’s sake is chatter. Collaborations have to add value and link to objectives of organization. Should help to define and arrive at the organization’s objectives.
Generative relationships: Zimmerman http://www.change-ability.ca/Exploring_Generative_Relationships.html
Consider why people are meeting:
- separateness aspect (we work alone)
- fine-tuning work: feedback
- collab opportunities: co-producing
- how do we work together to arrive at goals? How can we from our different perspectives arrive at a common agenda/ at our goals?
Goal should be enriching the overall.
How do we build in/formal collaborations within GoC?

Panel discussion: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Brendan Mullen - Collaborating with external partners

In government, there might be too many layers, too many acronyms.

When talking to external partners, keep it simple, easy. Enable communications by being clear.
Clarify your internal processes up front. What could be a blocker? red flag?
Have a single internal point of contact when working with an external partner.
Confirm technical limitations/ access/ permissions. Tools of engagement.
Clearly define objectives: what are you trying to achieve. Consider Terms of Reference for project. Manage scope creep!

Jodi LeBlanc - Collaborating across borders

Collaboration is about turning ideas into action.
Canada@150 brought together 150 individuals across Canada to examine policy options when Canada turns 150 years old. All work done through a wiki.
Jodie coordinates New professionals column for New Canadian Executive.
Using wiki to propose/ collaborate on project ideas. Engaged membership.
Federal Youth Network: Enabling geographically-distributed collaboration using tools: conference calls, wikis, collab spaces.
Surround yourself with people who are equally engaged to have successful collaboration.
Sometimes managers cannot allow collaboration: try to turn the No into a yes. Put in your own time, on lunch break, vacation time. You will benefit. Bring ideas back to the team. Brown bag lunch to share knowledge with peers/ colleagues.
Try to be innovative and collaborate often.

Peter Stoyko - Biases and Blindspots: Traps in Collaboration

What are the two most important moments in your life? Birth. And moment you know what you’re on earth for.
The world tries to compartmentalize us: silos, disciplines, professions and trades, departments, jobs, jurisdictions.
Collaboration should be more of a habit.
Interacting with people outside your normal sphere of influence.
Lots of obstacles to collaboration.
Life would be easy if everything aligned smoothly. Not realistic.
Guerilla approach to managing things: working within constraints, but working successfully despite them.
Rhythms and flows of our work: grand initiatives vs collaborative workflows - Collaboration should be integrated into your day.
Sharedness bias: bias of discussion conversation usually revolves around what each person knows. Conversation stays in “safe zone” - the known.
Group polarization bias: As conversation grows, the main view, the view held by the majority is the one that gets reinforced. Make sure lesser heard voices speak up to share other perspectives.
Joint decision trap: Collaboration becomes more like a negotiation. Compromises that incorporate different views but serves no one. Everyone has a little win.
Info pr0n: Infographic to be distributed to conference attendees (printout)

Thomas Townsend - Silos: Why are stovepipes still standing?

Implied belief that we can do better through collaboration.
Do away with 2 theories

power hungry boss
knowledge hoarding colleague

Consider: I know why I collaborate. Why do others want to collaborate? with me?
Context matters: silos exist for a reason. We may work in fields where the amount of knowledge and information is specialized and would require a lot of explanation. Busting silos may not be the best solution. Bridging them may be more efficient and effective. Look for bridging opportunities.
While collaboration is effective, it’s not always efficient. May require significant investment. Consider if worthwhile.
Building collaboration as a routine and a habit is key.
Q: How do you make collaboration part of your workday, so that colleagues/ coworkers/ managers don’t perceive it as “slacking off”?
A: Baby steps. It only takes one person starting to make change. Never underestimate the power of "outlaw appeal". Working outside traditional frameworks will entice others to join.
Don’t treat collaboration as a youth movement.
Demonstrate art of the possible. Make collaboration possible for people, within their own contexts. Show them how/ when they can do it.
Demonstrate a win achieved through collaboration.
My thoughts: Is collaboration really inefficient? Perhaps if it’s forced, but not if the motivation is intrinsic.
Collaboration is a soft skill. Need an engagement competency as Behavioural Competency for hiring.
People want to collaborate but they don’t have to be in on everything! Maybe they can be interested, involved to varying degrees.
Introduce some project management discipline to ensure that the goal is achieved.
People see safety in groups. Meetings can be “fake collaboration”. Shield individuals from accountability - group think, group decisions. Group actions can be bold, but can be trickier to achieve. Need high intention stated at the beginning of the collaboration to keep pointing the group back to.
There’s a difference between a clique and a silo. Cliques create boundaries that are non-porous. Silos can be useful. < My thoughts: Don’t agree with that. Maybe different word is needed? Does he really mean silos in traditional sense?

Laws for Collaborative Culture Camp

Law of 1/n: If you are in a room with n people., make sure you are contributing 1/n of the discussion
Law of 2 feet: If you are neither learning nor contributing it is your responsibility to respectfully use your own two feet to find some place you are learning or contributing.

Keynote: Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council

How to collaborate: Public service has changed a lot in the past few years, making a big difference to how people are working. Change can be slow. We’re still far from the Tipping Point, but take what you learn here today and spread it out to your teams and networks. You. Can. Make. A. Difference.
Mr. Wouters was impressed by the presence at the conference, considering it was put together for free, by initiative.
Move from risk averse to risk aware.
Acknowledges efforts are key to maintaining collaborative progress. We have to continue. It is the nature of our jobs.

Check tweetstream for more notes.

Fireside Chat: Inside/ Outside Collaboaration

Speakers: LAC, ADM resource discovery, Adam Fritz INAC, Gail Harsmon EC

Need to be able to make change: if collaborate but can’t create results, do anything with the results, then difficult/ not worth it.
Lack of willingness to take risks in public service. High contrast to private sector. Makes sense, checks and balances are required but there are ways to get around it.
In public service, people tend to keep information so close to their chests. Information hoarding.
Public service collaboration needs to overcome these.
We carry cultural baggage: personal culture, professional culture (e.g. of Government). Need to understand, difficult to break through. If you’re collaborating with people and it’s easy, either you’re lucky or you haven’t invited the right people. (Group think)
Let your ego down a bit to make people comfortable and make sure people feel heard. Better for collaboration, contribution.
Refining, making subject of collaboration finer. Put it in the public space, develop discourse around it.
There are lines: need to look at what’s possible in the public space. How can we cross lines set by policy frameworks, guidelines...
Need to be responsive. Need to co-produce with the public. How?
Engage user communities in describing and adding value to the content departments create. Co-production, co-creating. Without mediation. Rulespace framework developed collectively.
Many issues around right, privacy, copyright, access to information.
Trust is the key to collaborating with the public. Openness, transparency.
Collaboration is about equals sharing, partnership. Give up power on the GOC side, give to the public. How do you get people within the GOC to give up some of that power?
Sound & Light Show on Parliament Hill was result of collaboration.
Collaboration especially with public is not easy to do; people will hold to their positions, unmoving. Don’t give up.
Get the moaning and the complaining over with, allow them the opportunity so that they can get to discussion on a level where they are not holding their positions.
Find a way to work with people.
Find out what success looks like for you. If you understand as a collective, can chart a course: consider constraints on all sides.
In the top-down administration, need to leverage the richness of collaboration to achieve success.
Opportunity: issues are not obstacles. There are a possible tsunami of obstacles to collaboration, but examine in terms of purpose/ reason for collaboration.
New innovations will emerge from the process.
Need to create space in GOC processes to enable collaboration within the decision-making framework.
Don’t be nervous about calling central agencies, they have networks and resources to help with collaboration.
If management encourages to start collaborating, will become ‘no brainer”, second nature.
Can start having culture of collaboration where you are: if there is openness and willingness, start it internally, from where you sit. It will only spread. Success breeds success.
GOC’s natural inclination is to try to control the process. Look at the value: get to better outcomes. Removes the issue of control; goal orientation.
Selling collaboration is easier if focus on values and outcomes, instead of on “how”.
30% of GOC departments give employees access to social media tools, which means we can’t listen. Access to social media is access to our audience, to the public, to listen. Blocking means we can’t hear the discussion. < My thoughts: Really? Only 30%???

Discussion: Measuring the Business Value of Collaboration

How can we measure the business value of collaboration? Discussion to brainstorm on ideas.
What does success look like? Success indicators?
DFO: as a program, if get additional partners or leverage other resources to improve your program results. Able to achieve your outcomes with X resources of your own and Y from elsewhere. Considered a positive, value add to your project. From evaluation perspective, seen in positive light.
HR-type of measurement: happiness, level of engagement. There are a couple of engagement measures for employees and managers. Series of questions related to engagement: Public Service survey questions. Could increase w/ collaboration.
Evaluating communication
How do governments collaborate? How in framework? Model of measurement - Ann Vaillancourt, Theresa Woolridge
GCPedia: Social Media Measurement
IDRC’s outcome mapping: training - good for public engagement initiatives. Book. http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-26586-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
Deliberative outcomes: when you collaborate, you’re less likely to be tunnel-vision focused on outcomes. Entire theory of practice around this topic. We’re often focused on engagement, this is another measure.
Reduction in duplication of effort: the broader the circle, the more likely you’ll be able to find other people working on the same thing. Measuring this may be difficult.
After action review: methodology to measure collaborations in terms of what was intended, what has occurred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_action_review (NRCan uses this)
Are there other ways that we can observe, beyond quantitative measures? Using own eyes to find other ways to show value: other ways to record information (videos, etc). Collaboration can add new features to product. Reducing time to completion. Story-telling in real-world way, beyond numbers.
Survey/ narrative interviews: Have managers describe ability to tap into network: need narrative to find out the benefits of pre-post network reality.
Pilot studies: measure effectiveness of collaboration pilot.
Define the intended value at the outset: link the collaboration to the business objectives.
Search time: amount of information available, amount of change that’s happening, finding the information you need, relevant. Reduction in amount of time to find relevant and right information.
Getting to know program activity architecture: demonstrate the value in terms of the MAF, PAA, DPR, etc.
Communication time: F:F meetings vs time spent on GCPedia to collaborate.
Trusted information on closed network. If find in closed network, more trusted than if found on web generally.
Training: Measure the performance gap of folks who are collaborating vs not.
Combination of quantitative and qualitative values seems to be best. Numbers & anecdotal.
Negative measurement: Risks avoided/ mitigated, pitfalls avoided. Provides additional context and value to your rationale.
We do exit interviews, but we don’t do stay interviews. Should incorporate in performance review meetings.
POR group can guide re. what you can and cannot measure from employees.

Discussion: Collective Leadership

Collective leadership: collaboration is only one part.
Joint-decision trap: group-think but no one is happy. Not true collaboration.
Make a difference. Get involved, influence. Think beyond traditional lines. Need Senior management support.
Think horizontally across the governments: across sectors, beyond departments. Decisions made sectorally, may require sacrifices in some sectors to benefit others.
Take the information gathered by the collective in order to push ideas forward.
“Kitchen Sink” working groups to address broad range of issues and/or range of departments/ sectors.
As business moves to flatter organizations, GOC still relies on large hierarchy.
Tap into hidden talents of people. Staff who may not be in a position that fits their talents.
Priority-setting and decision-making to get ready for fiscal year: collective and horizontal. Then vertical implementation. Need to be balanced.
How to instigate collective leadership in your own organization?

Fireside Chat: User Experience Working Group - Horizontal Collaboration across GOC

Panel: Laura Wesley, Simona Ioffe, Blaise Hebert, Elodie Mantha

... Check tweetstream for earlier notes. ...

Don’t give people make work projects: let them know what the intent of the project will be.
On-boarding people to make sure that they understand and have the information to participate.
Engaging communities starts at 90/9/1 rule. 90% lurk, 9% contribute, 1% core.
Community model: needed sustainable model in order to prevent burn-out, enable participants to rotate through roles. Ensure quality of engagement and deliverables.
Engage your 1% into the process: that way the leadership can move away and the community can get work done.
Need trust first. If everyone is engaged then everyone can move forward.
Use combination of traditional tools and new Web 2.0 tools.
Need to make this a repeatable process: document findings, processes, train people to be able to replicate.

Wrap-up: Key Messages

For collaborative processes, need to have heartbeat: deadlines, tasks.
For internal-external collaborations: need trust between participants
Collective leadership: need sharing of resources and ideas across GOC
Has there been a study on how GOC employees use Web 2.0 technologies? Include in annual employee survey?