Collaboration

Breaking Down Agile Collaboration Complexity

Agile collaboration has so many different aspects. A lot depends on our own work-style, the one of our peers and of course the many levels of sociology you’re in. Differences in interests, competition, the intensity of the relationship, the frequency and the amount of time spent together, the difference in level of expertise – of course, the list goes on. All of these things influence the possibilities, the abilities and last but not least the efficacy of collaborative interaction.

To make it even a bit more complex, not every aspect varies in every collaboration setup, like physical distance, wake-time and bio-rhythms.

It is hardly imaginable that a predefined rule set can be applied to a satisfactory level of interaction. The sheer number of possibilities makes every organization unique, let alone cross-organizational teams.

Holism by aggregation or decomposition and re-arrangement?

How nice holism is and also an important philosophical and analytical tool, it unfortunately doesn’t help understanding the thinking model behind this complexity. Aggregation of already unexplained or unrecognized underlying structures leads to loss of knowledge. Scaling an aggregation of methods without understanding the underlying logic eventually leads to people working around the agreed model.

Also, imitation of methods that could be working in another context not only is scientifically slightly doubtful but leads to less potential and flow by making people uncomfortable.

Decomposition, then. But how?

It’s not a trivial question – and there’s no simple answer to complex questions. All we can do is slice the underlying needs of the different parties into their single aspects, try and understand those and recombine the pieces into a less complex, more dedicated space.

Two ways seem to be the evident ones to approach this.

Dimensionality

Trying and finding the possible independent aspects of the interactions applicable to the case at hand for all levels, i.e. personal, team and organizational needs and possibilities, e.g. frequency, distance or expertise, as mentioned above. This helps recognizing and understanding the very atoms of the logic. But that is not sufficient.

Quantification

If we were only breaking down dimensionality, with a large number of choices on every aspect, we would still have a combinatorial explosion, as there is more than one factor in the equation. So choosing a digestible number of representatives is crucial in order to have an outcome understandable and acceptable by all participants.

Conclusion

Applying more scientific methods and minimizing the number of undeclared assumptions originated from copying unexplained recepies, we get only a handful of important aspects in combination with a digestible amount of variety of similar needs that we can regroup and see where we find the common denominator over the different levels of groups of affected people. Not by synchronizing and pacing every one over cadence.

An individual collaboration style – is it possible?

Let’s find out together.