We are all familiar with collaboration that fails because of insufficient effort in one direction or another. Here is a a proposal that takes into consideration all the factors at play when a group of people collaborate.

The formula I propose shows how to create collaborative success. Yes, there is probably a more complex or correct equation for what it takes to make collaboration successful than this one. Your comments will help me refine the ideas …

Successful collaboration is a factor of Communications times the sum of your Production,  Problem-Solving and Review processes as well as your Tools, all to the power of your shared Goals.

Some of the factors in collaborative writing are

• Comms or Communications
• P or Production and writing activity
• PS or Problem-solving
• Rev or Review
• Tools

All of these variables are magnified by the shared goals that the team embraces. This means that a collaboration is strengthened by shared goals.

This formula reflects the fact that all the aspects of a project need to be communicated to everyone who needs to know, or the collaboration will not achieve the intended aims. And the aims guide all aspects of the project:

• Reviewers and people solving the project problems need to know what the aims are
• Production needs to be driven by the goals, since understanding them is what enhances success exponentially

The result of your collaboration is your completed project. Maximize all your contributions by all contributors and your success will be greater than ever. It is not through particularly hard work, either. Know the goal and communicating at every level is the secret to collaborative success. Later, when you evaluate your project, you will take all these factors apart again and look at them one by one. You’ll see how much more you gained by communicating and being clearer on the goals than simply by applying labour and tools to the job.

Successful collaboration is a factor of Communications times the sum of your Production, problem-solving and review processes as well as your tools, all to the power of your shared goals.

The featured image about communications and sharing is available on my flickr page.