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LESSONS IN COLLABORATION FOR A COVID WORLD
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Gillian Magee, head of programme delivery
at AstraZeneca, passes on her tips to make collaboration work in our new normal PRODUCTION
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ollaboration is a core requirement for effective project management, but it has been made more challenging in the past year. We can’t rely on co-located teams sparking off one another. Jumping on a train or plane to attend project workshops or to meet team members and stakeholders is impossible. I’ve spent a little time considering how we’ve tried to support high-quality collaboration while dealing with the inability to meet face-to-face. Here are the four biggest lessons we’ve learnt.
LESSON 1 Make the time to pass the time This might sound obvious, but it can be easy to miss, and it takes effort and discipline to maintain in the longer term. At AstraZeneca, in ‘normal times’ we follow the Swedish tradition of fika – an informal gathering with coffee and something to eat at least once a week. During lockdowns, we have put in place virtual fikas – some small and some larger for whole offices. People share cake recipes, tips on getting a good cup of coffee at home and Netflix recommendations. This has helped disparate teams to feel connected. Use the team members who are great organisers to make sure there’s a rota for engagement and a range of events, from the very informal to guest speakers. Different types of events will work for or appeal to different people, so don’t expect everyone to
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attend everything, but make them appealing enough that you get a good attendance. Ask people what works and what doesn’t. Change it periodically to keep it fresh. This has been really useful in getting new team members onboarded, as it helps to maintain our culture and connectedness. At the beginning of project meetings, allow time for a proper check-in. Let’s face it – most meetings can cope with a five-minute delay to the start of formal proceedings. If it’s a larger meeting, use some real-time technology to take the temperature and to understand people’s priorities for the session. You also need to be prepared to flex the agenda in response to the feedback and/or follow up on it afterwards. If someone is quiet, check in with them outside of the meeting.
LESSON 2 Rethink how you collaborate Longer team meetings or project sessions cannot just be turned from in-person, day-long events into an online version. If you can use a facilitator to run the session (a project manager or analyst from another project or team can be great), so that you can genuinely participate, so much the better. We have found that you can’t expect high-quality collaboration for more than about two hours. Even within that time period, we break it up into plenary and smaller group sessions. If a longer time frame is needed, we plan the sessions over the course of a few
Meeting face-to-face for a coffee and something to eat, fika-style, is a good practice to adopt once we’re back in the office
