Collaborate:

Bring people together around digital projects

Ellen de Vries
 0% read

Introduction

W e’ve created this book to help you think about the work you do as a collaborator in your day to day life.
It includes checklists, tools, re ections and experiments that can help you consider your own role in
relation to others at work, as well as some practical activities to try out with your collaborative groups or teams.

There are four sections:

Part 1 — Get prepared
Know how to prepare the ground and create the right conditions for collaboration.

Part 2 — Nurture the group culture

Nurture the group culture in the early stages of collaboration.

Part 3 — Maintain good practice

Maintain a healthy collaborative process.

Part 4 — Reap the rewards

Reap the rewards of a collaboration.

“ Every time we work with a new set of people we need to rethink the way we collaborate with
them and start afresh.”
 TWEET THIS
If you’re reading this book, the chances are that you have an interest in collaboration techniques for digital teams,
particularly on projects where you're working with multidisciplinary teams. As you may have already experienced,
digital teams are well known for evolving fast; you may be working with a wide range of stakeholders, consultants,
and experts from varying disciplines who come and go throughout your projects. Holding on to a sense of close
collaboration in an environment that is always changing can be challenging.

Whether you’re designing conversational interfaces, robots, self-driving cars or straight-up websites, your
collaborations will always include people from disciplines that you’re not used to working with. When every
digital team is as diverse and unique as a snow ake, the one common factor in every collaboration is you. What
matters is how you approach the opportunity to collaborate with others.

Who are your collaborators?

A s a collaborator within a group, you may want to use this book to discover your collective potential.
Together, you have what it takes to create an entirely new ‘something’ that could never have been created
by just one person.
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Part 1
Get prepared
“ In a complex, interconnected world it is simply impossible to do anything substantial or
worthwhile that does not involve collaboration across multiple disciplines. The road to digital
transformation involves building bridges.”
— GERRY MCGOVERN
AUTHOR OF TRANSFORM, A REBEL'S GUIDE TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Find out where to start

B efore you start your collaboration, you’ll want to know the nuts and bolts of why you are coming together
as a group and what it is that you need to achieve. On digital projects, a discovery phase is the perfect
opportunity to determine the shape your team is going to take, and gure out how you’re going to work.

A discovery phase might include:

Taking stock of what already exists

Looking at areas of potential for the project
Establishing a shared language for the group, including roles and tasks
Giving shape to a project and de ning the tasks ahead of you

What if you're joining a project that has already started?

When the team are galloping ahead and getting down to business, it can feel awkward to say “I need to get the
basics down before I can continue”.

If you’re asked to jump into a project and hit the ground running, you may feel there isn’t enough time to get to
know people and their responsibilities. You might not even be familiar with the roles and disciplines that people
in the room have. The rst rule of collaborative encounters is that the conditions are never as perfect as you
might have hoped.

It can be helpful to use this phrase to guide you:

No matter how you start your collaboration, this is the perfect

starting point.

Collect dry facts

W hether you have the luxury of conducting a discovery phase or not, your mission is to gather as many
dry facts as you can.

Here is a useful checklist of questions you can ask your team at the outset of any project, either in an email or in
person. They are equally relevant whether you're arriving to work as part of a pre-existing collaboration, or
starting afresh.

Getting these questions answered will give you an immediate sense of the project you are embarking on. The
responses will give you a sense of how much ground work there is to do either in the discovery phase of a project,
or before you can continue.

What are your collaborator’s names, what are their roles, how much time do they have?
Is there an organisational chart?
What are the time scales for this piece of work?
How much work has been done already?
Is there a deadline and are there milestones?
What is the brief and is it clear?
What is the budget? Who is in charge of it?
Who are the stakeholders and who has the power to 'sign it o '?
Are there any sensitive issues that need to be taken account of?
Are there any potential blockers to getting started?
Who are your allies in this process and who do you need to get on board?
What tools are you using to communicate and to share the work?
What is the environment like, do you need to arrange facilities?
Is anyone facilitating? Leading the process? Acting as an outside eye?
What are the immediate needs that your team members have?
Is any training required to get people up to speed?
Is there a brand guide, style guide or other governance materials?

If you have identi ed that there are any missing answers, make a note of them and allocate time to doing some
further detective work.

Embarking on a project without a clear sense of the dry facts can be a dangerous game. It may be challenging to
be the person who brings up the ‘stupid’ questions, but sometimes those questions are the ones that everyone
else has been afraid to ask. The answers to many of the questions above may seem obvious, but the more obvious
they are, the more likely they are to be overlooked, which could spell trouble further down the line.

FURTHER READING
📕 Using a Project Canvas, from the Clearleft blog

Play with some raw materials

I n the same way as a carpenter selects the log they will be working with, or a theatre troupe selects a set of
props to inspire them as they develop their show, it can be useful to source a few initial raw materials to play
with at the start of a project.

Whether you’re starting your collaboration at the beginning of the discovery phase, or you’re jumping into a pre-
existing collaboration, raw materials can help you and your collaborators roll up your sleeves and get a sense of
the material you’ll be working with in the project ahead. Raw materials help you keep your discussions grounded
in reality.

Having something to look at together as a team, to put up on the wall and point to during discussions, can be a
helpful way to pull a group of collaborators together from day one. It is important that you don’t start to analyse,
correct, draw conclusions or ‘ x’ the raw materials at this stage. They should only serve as a springboard for
collaboration.

Examples of raw materials include any artefacts that have been produced to support the project to date,
and can include:

A project brief
A project le with previous iterations
A record of any recent ideas
Sources of inspiration: e.g. on-site visits or co ee table magazines
A pre-existing website
Any existing brand language or brand guidelines (mission statements etc.)
Printed marketing materials such as brochures or prospectuses
Notes and sketches
Moodboards (produced before you arrived)

TIP
💡 Many digital agency teams conduct a research phase or stakeholder interviews to get close to the raw materials
with their clients.

Case Study
Always have something to point at.
At the Government Digital Service (GDS) in the UK there’s a catchphrase known as ‘Show the Thing’.

Even though this phrase was most commonly used to encourage people to show the thing they had made, rather
than talk abstractly about the thing, the same applies here. Having a concrete example, or a set of real artefacts to
point to can help you ensure that collaborative discussions don’t become too abstract.

FURTHER READING
📕 Read more about Show the Thing on the GDS Website

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 Part 2
Nurture the group culture
“ If you put a lot of people together, there are a lot of dreams that are trying to come into being
from that group. And you want to try to cook them up so they present themselves to the whole
group so everyone thinks ‘Yes, that is what I’m dreaming’.”
— PHELIM MCDERMOTT
OPERA DIRECTOR AT THE ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA, FOUNDER OF IMPROBABLE THEATRE

Find out what motivates you

 Find out what motivates you
“ When working on projects, the journey you go on as a group IS the collaboration. Together,
you make a change”
TWEET THIS

W


hen you enter into new projects, the journey that you go on as a group is the collaboration. Together,
you will be making a change.

At this stage, nurturing the collaboration is more important than the outcome. When teams create a dynamic that
allows each member of the group to feel safely challenged and supported along the way, a satisfying result will
emerge.

Discover your own motivations and your group’s motivations.

By understanding each of your collaborator’s motivations in the project, you’ll get to know them better and nd
out what drives them. This will help you understand who you’re working with and help you accommodate their
needs throughout the process.

Every collaborative project you enter into gives each individual a new chance to:

1. Use their skills

2. Learn something new
3. Create something they are proud of
4. Make new connections

Take some time to think about what you want to get out of this process:

What motivates you about this collaboration?

What do you hope for?

What would you like to have achieved by the end of this collaboration?

Post these answers somewhere where you will see them. It can be easy to lose sight of your own mission when
there are many voices at the table, so these will be worth revisiting on a regular basis.

TIP
💡 When you see a greater mission emerging throughout the process, it might be time to let go of your original
mission. Be prepared to try and achieve a balance between give and take.

Activity
Develop a shared understanding of your motivations

Long term collaborations

 Long term collaborations
Go for a walk with each of your team members individually. Chat to them informally about the process you’re
about to embark on. Record the results of the conversation together when you get back from your walk. You may
wish to put the answers on a wall so that they can be shared and compared.

Short term face-to-face collaboration

At the beginning of your session, ask each of your team members to take 3 sticky notes. Give them at least 3
minutes to think about the answers to the questions you answered earlier, about what motivates them. When
they are ready, ask them to stick the notes on the wall. Take the opportunity to have a discussion about where
there are similarities and di erences.

Distributed team collaborations

Send the questions out using a simple survey (Google Documents may be the simplest). You may want to
collectively discuss the outcomes on a video conference call.

“ Know yourself:
The way you work within a team is in uenced by your personality. It’s important to be clear
about your preferences, qualities, and attributes, as well as those of your team members. This
alignment of work styles will improve communication and help the leadership and management
of your project.

Assess your own strengths and weaknesses. Know what matters most to you and to the group,
then look at how you’re spending your time. Track your time to see how your activities align with
both sets of priorities. Although there’s no one e ective tool for personality assessment, tools like
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Five-Factor Model (FFM) and the DiSC® pro le
assessment can help you understand your natural preferences and how you relate to other people.

By strategically preparing for change, we can understand our internal audience, create a
common vision, and use the right approach to help align stakeholders.”
— MELISSA BREKER
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP

Identify roles and responsibilities

H ave you ever been in a meeting where everyone goes around the room and introduces themselves by their
name and their job title, and then left the room wondering what it is that people do?

A job title is not enough of a description. At the beginning of a collaboration you need to develop allegiances and
learn who to turn to for expertise. To do that, you need to spend time getting closer to the story of what people
do.
Reflection:
 Reflection:
Spend a moment considering your own roles and responsibilities in relation to your project.

Name 5 things that you associate with your role in this project:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Name 5 things that you think are your responsibility in the collaboration (these may not necessarily relate
to your role):

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Now ask yourself:

Do your collaborators understand what your responsibilities entail?

What do you do to make sure your collaborators understand your role and responsibilities?

“ Broaden the de nition of who your team is: think about all the di erent people at points in the
project who are going to contribute to making the project run smoothly. That's anyone who has
an interest in the success of the project.”
— JONATHAN KAHN
ORGANISER OF AGILE CONTENT CONF

Here are some useful tips when it comes to understanding one another’s roles and responsibilities before
you begin the process:

1. If people don’t already have one, ask them to write down their job description and share these with the group.
2. In longer term collaborations, ask people to share their skills (which may not even seem relevant), random
knowledge areas and enthusiasms.
3. Make time in the process for knowledge sharing, so that everyone gets to understand one another’s roles and
what they do in those roles.
4. Don’t forget that any new person coming to the process needs to be thoroughly introduced to the team and the
work they’re doing.
 5. Make time for your team to share stories about previous work they have done that has been relevant; sharing
stories about roles and responsibilities is the fastest way to build a shared understanding of what is possible.

Activity
Run a RASCI session to establish how people are involved
Not every collaborator will have the same level of involvement in the project. Every time you meet a new
collaborator on the project, ask them to choose from the following options. Make sure that all members of the
team can see what level of involvement each collaborator has.

Responsible
At least one person needs to take this role and be the owner.

Accountable
This may be the person who o ers approval or sign o .

Supporting
The support here may be de ned as o ering resources or other assistance.

Consulted
This person needs to be kept in the loop because they have useful skills or can o er information.

Informed
This person needs to be kept in the loop at agreed points in the process.

“ Communication plans are a great way to share what, how, and when information is shared and
who is responsible for communicating information. Do a web search for 'project communication
plan template' to see some samples for your projects.”
— MELISSA BREKER
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP

Delegate and allocate responsibilities

'Fluffy Edges' - A project task delegation exercise

I n every collaboration there is a list of goals to be reached, which include jobs to be done. Jobs and tasks can
be prioritised and allocated to people who seem to suit that task best.

But sometimes when you begin a project, it’s not always clear who is going to take on the tasks that are a little
' u er'; no-one knows who should be responsible for certain tasks.
 In 'Flu y Edges', the aim is to write out all the tasks that need to be completed to keep the project running, but
when it’s not clear who might be responsible for the those tasks it can be helpful to get the entire group to have a
look at them.

Examples of ' u y edges' include:

Who is going to document the process on social media?

Who is going to arrange the meeting room?
Who is going to make sure we have snacks?

Activity
Work out your fluffy edges:
1. As a team, brainstorm your personal collection of ‘ u y edges’, or the tasks that need to be done.
2. Write each one out on an index card.
3. Go through the cards systematically and decide together who should do each task.
4. Collect up the tasks that have been allocated to you.

A version of this task was introduced to the Clearleft team by Clare Kirkland and James Box, Agile project manager and
UX Lead.

“ The faster you can all forget your job title, the better. If you have a clear understanding of what
you are trying to achieve for your audience, the goal is to bring all your expertise to solve that
one problem. Work as one team, no matter who you report to or what building you sit in, and
you'll get to that goal a lot faster.”
— SARAH RICHARDS
CONTENT STRATEGIST, TRAINER & CONSULTANT

Define your leadership

“ Can a group of individuals together ask what a project wants, rather than depending on the
hierarchical domination of one person? Of course, a project needs structure and a sense of
direction, but can the leader aim for discovery rather than staging a replica of what she or he
has decided beforehand?”
— ANNE BOGART, CHOREOGRAPHER

Y ou may or may not have a hierarchy in your team, or you may have a range of people you are answerable to.
There is often a misconception that a team is ‘run by the boss’, or even a single leader.
 Instead, it can be useful to think of your team roles in a non-hierarchical fashion, but with various people ‘in
charge’ of aspects of the collaboration:

The key stakeholder

The person who will ultimately sign o the project, they have the nal say or the veto on decisions that need to be
made.

The manager of logistics

Scheduling, meeting arrangements, and other day to day housekeeping such as being in charge of how the budget
is allocated.

The outside eye

This person may stand in the shoes of the end user or the audience and help guide the work to meet their wants
and needs.

The facilitator
This person is not necessarily in charge, but helps you make progress in your work by drawing out ideas by asking
questions. They may also keep an eye on the agenda.

The buddy
A person who is allocated to support people in the team either in terms of their well-being, or as a person who
o ers a second opinion.

It is important to remember that any collaborator within your group can take the lead at any time and initiate or
invite the rest of the group to follow. This is a sign of a healthy collaboration, where people take the risk of
putting themselves forward and feel free to open their ideas up for debate.

As you are reading this book, you may feel like taking the lead in terms of building healthy collaborative practices
in your group.

“ Decision-making styles:
As projects progress, so do the needs of di erent decision-making. Some project leaders prefer to
stay highly involved at all stages of a project. Think about how people on your projects
participate and their natural style of decision-making.”
— MELISSA BREKER
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP

Fulfil your collaborators' needs

T he more time you spend thinking about creating the ideal conditions for the group work, the more it will
pay o . As humans, we struggle to be a willing participant when we are being deprived of our basic needs.

If you or your collaborators are su ering from low motivation, it can be helpful to use Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs as a troubleshooting checklist. According to Maslow, a social psychologist who studied what motivates us,
we need certain conditions to be met before we are able to thrive and ful l our potential.

Self-Actualisation
Do you allow for playfulness?
How do you make space for creativity?
How do you make the most of the unexpected?
Are people able to pursue satisfying challenges and take risks?

Esteem
How do people know they are valued and respected?
How do you make the most of your successes?
How do you deal with failure?
Do people feel like it’s rewarding to be themselves?

Belonging
Is there time for people to get to know one another?
Do people know who to turn to when things get tough?
How do you facilitate getting to know one another?
 What values and mission hold the team together?

Safety
Where will people be greeted, do they have the right instructions?
Do people feel free to express themselves?
What are the health and safety procedures?
Where and how can people take a break and relax?

Physiological Needs
Have you got good food to o er people as snacks and meals?
Is there enough air in the room?
Is there adequate wi ?
What are the toilet facilities like?
How accessible are the facilities?

Case Study
Well-being for remote teams
Sometimes it’s not possible for teams to be in the same room together. On a recent project for a worldwide
charity, one of our team members was based in Scotland when we were in the South of England in Brighton.

To maintain a strong sense of collaboration with remote teams, it’s important to choose the right set of tools to
collaborate with. We used Slack for quick- re questions during the day, and appear.in for video chatting.

As a team we conducted a daily video check-in at the same time each day. This 5 minute check-in allowed time for
informal chitchat, and a daily update.

For longer conversations we took regular breaks, allowing people to get tea and snacks. Sometimes the o ce dog
and cats made an appearance too!

“ Most e ective collaboration tools: tea (or co ee), biscuits (or cake), respect and a shared goal.
Nothing beats a proper chat.”
— SARAH RICHARDS
CONTENT STRATEGIST, TRAINER & CONSULTANT

Create a shared understanding

L et's look at techniques for nding alignment and establishing a shared understanding with your team. At
this stage, you may be interested in forming a clear sense of the direction that you're collectively heading
 L
in. But in order to decide on the direction you're taking, you may also want to establish a sense of your group's
culture; what you stand for and what you believe in.

ORIGINAL DIAGRAM CREDIT: ANON

Find the differences in understanding

Take a moment to try out this exercise. If you have any other people around you ask them to try it too.

1. Think of an elephant.
2. Write down a short description of that elephant.
3. Share your descriptions with another person.

We all understand the idea or the concept of an elephant. But every person will describe the elephant in their
mind's eye di erently. This exercise highlights how di erently we understand even the most basic concepts and
how speci c we need to be if we want to nd alignment with our collaborators.

Having a lack of clarity around a concept is a double edged sword. By listening to our collaborators’ ideas around
a concept, we might discover ideas that we like and wish to take on board. Using the best parts of everyone’s
ideas, a group might be able to create the ultimate picture of an elephant.

A lack of clarity around a concept might also lead to frustration and disagreement as people struggle to
understand one another. When a concept seems so simple it can be di cult to acknowledge that your group may
not be aligned in their understanding.
 “ Design begins with language. The spaces and contexts we design for have their terms, their
relationships, their rules. Gaining consensus means aligning on a common mental model and a
shared vocabulary that stems from the language of your audience. Vocabulary is hard; it forces
you to de ne things, which forces the team to agree on that de nition. But it clari es your intent
and ushes out your points of di erence to start o any project from an understanding of how
your world ts together. Vocabulary is the infrastructure that underpins your content. It's the
design behind the design.”
— MIKE ATHERTON
CONTENT STRATEGIST AT FACEBOOK

Multidisciplinary collaboration

I n my agency life as a Content Strategist, I often work with people from multiple disciplines at once. At any
one time I may be working with a developer, a user experience designer and a visual designer, as well as a
subject matter expert such as a museum curator, a doctor, or a travel specialist (...agency life is varied!).

Multidisciplinary collaboration is both challenging and rewarding because each discipline has their own unique
understanding and perspective on a task. Each person sees the task through a di erent lens. An engineer might be
inclined to look at the workings of a car, whereas a visual designer might look mostly at the outer shell. But what
happens if those two truly collaborate?

“ Creative abrasion and creative agility are key to innovation. Maximise di erences and
debate.”
— LINDA HILL, COLLECTIVE GENIUS

Entering into a conversation with people from another discipline can be overwhelming but also highly
educational and enriching for a project. When working together it is important to encourage an atmosphere of
openness, allowing one another to ask for de nitions of di cult language, and helping one another understand
concepts. In my work, I spend a large (and fruitful) portion of my time o ering clari cation on terms I might use,
or decisions I might make.

Working with diversity

T he more diverse a group are, the richer the potential in the collaboration. Having a diverse group can mean
that your team members are of di erent ethnic origins, mixed genders, mixed cultural background,
abilities, sexualities, or even characterful tendencies.

Multidisciplinary collaboration becomes particularly important at the intersections where cultures and peoples'
life experiences need to nd ways to converge. The strongest forms of innovation occur where we have to nd a
creative new way to understand one another’s unfamiliar languages and experiences. Often it takes an interaction
with someone outside of your frame of reference to point out something that you did not know.
 “ For teams, working with other people who have diverse needs and capabilities can be hard. I nd
it bene cial to start within the team and within the individual members to recognise the diversity
of their own capacities and communities. Broadening the sense of self within a team is a way of
making it more open to the diversity of other people who are encountered through a design
project. There is a strong normative bias to an impossible ideal of user (in design). Self-
recognition is a simple way of strengthening a team and enabling positive relationships with real
people who can perceive and share completely new design spaces with you.”
— ALISTAIR SOMERVILLE
SENSORY DESIGN CONSULTANT,
@ACUITY_DESIGN

Find your shared language

One way to create a shared understanding of the 'thing' you are working on is to create diagrams and maps of
associated language, discussing the relationships between elements of your work with your team members. If
you're in the same space, make sure you use the walls, covering them with records of your discussions.

“ Domain mapping is a powerful tool for teasing out and documenting a shared understanding of
the world in which the project exists – aka, its domain – and establishing how we should refer to
it. Don’t know how the rail shipping industry works? A domain map visually shows that
conductors drive trains to pick-up points and use a shipment manifest to plan their day, and so
 on. Each actor, or noun, (conductor, train, manifest, etc) is an item on the visual map and is
connected to other actors by an action relationship, or “verb”, lines (drives, uses…). These terms
for actors and actions become the shared project language. The team agrees to say “conductor”
and avoid the alternate term “train driver”. This graphical view also replaces reams of project
documentation that often gets put in a drawer after the analysis phase is over and never gets
updated.”
— NOZ URBINA
CONTENT STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, URBINA CONSULTING

Activity
Take stock of your language.
 FACE-TO-FACE ACTIVITY

“ The words we choose change the things we make and how we think about them. Our words
also change how other people make sense of our work.”
— ABBY COVERT

When a group of people come together from di erent disciplines, each person has a sense of their own language;
the words and behaviours they use to conduct the work they do. We might use the same words to describe
something entirely di erent.

E.g. When a Visual Designer talks about brand, they may automatically be referencing the visual manifestation of
the brand. When a Content Strategist refers to the brand, they may be talking about the messaging and the stories
that the brand tells. I have often been in conversations where we’re referring to ‘rebranding’ and only realised
after a long while that the conversation has been referring only to the visual aspects of the brand.

In the early stages of your collaboration, gather your group together and ask them to write down their intentions.
You may also want to use any of your raw materials, or your mission statement for this task.

Pull out meaningful (and perhaps obvious) nouns and phrases that keep appearing. For example, you may choose
words like ‘Honesty’ or ‘Innovation’. You may also want to pick up on groups of nouns, a phrase like 'digital
presence' is often a great ambiguous place to start a discussion from.

Write these phrases on large sheets of paper and place them around the room. Ask the group to circulate around
the room and write down de nitions of what they think that word means. Their sentences could start with: “This
means…..” or “Like when….”. You will be surprised to nd that people have a very di erent understanding of
many of the words.

This is a great starting point to help you build your own project vocabulary from, so that your entire team
understand the de nition (and what the big questions are) before you start.

FURTHER READING
📕 How to Make Sense of any Mess, by Abby Covert. This book o ers further insight into nding a shared
language as a group.
 Define your collaborative values
“ Teams build a business.
Culture builds a team.”
— DAVID HIEATT, DO PURPOSE

E very group has a culture that develops as you collectively grow and change. Thinking about your values
near the start of the project can be a way to fast-track your understanding of how you want to work
together.

“ Think about your values at the start of projects to fast-track your understanding of how you
want to work together”
 TWEET THIS
The values you have as a group can help you make decisions, and are particularly useful when introducing a new
team member, or giving people a sense of the way you work as your team grows and changes. When you have very
little time, the idea of nding shared values and articulating your mission can seem very daunting.

Take a moment to re ect on these questions:

How do you make decisions together as a team?

How do you know what is ok, and what is not ok?

Exercise 1
Discovering your values
⏲ FROM 30 MINS TO 2 HOURS
 FACE TO FACE ACTIVITY

There are some fundamental human values that every functional team uphold, and no-one would argue the
contrary; these include, trust, respect and inclusivity. But there are many more values you might choose. This
exercise will help your team discover the unique set of phrases that might form your cultural glue.

Step 1
On a small piece of paper list 5 of your friends and 5 people who inspire you (ideally people who are relevant to
your project). Tell your team that they won’t have to share this part of the exercise.

Step 2
Next to that list, write down what it is you enjoy about each of those people’s ‘way of being’, preferably using two
or three words e.g frivolous creativity, sensitive listening ear or challenging thinker, cosy home maker.

Step 3
Now ask each of your collaborators to write out their phrases (not the names) on a sticky note.

Step 4
Stick all the sticky notes on a wall.

Step 5
 Begin reorganising the notes randomly. Start to look for shared values between each individual’s notes, but also
look at interesting opposites. As you do this, hold a group discussion about what your shared values could be. E.g
“Do we want to be challenging thinkers?” Make sure you answer the following three questions:

What is it about the way you behave together that's special?

If someone new came into the team, what would they need to know about you?
Would the opposite also be true?

Finally, try to prioritise just a few of the values.

Once you decide on your set of common values, you may decide to ‘try on’ your values for a while. In the same
way as you would try on new clothes, wear them for a few days or weeks and see if they t comfortably.

TIP
💡 Conducting a ‘values’ exercise can often turn into “Let’s think of lots of great ways to compliment ourselves.” Be
careful to be strict about the phrases that are unique to you.

“ To promote collaboration in content workshops, prioritise building trust over producing outputs.
At rst this will seem like slowing down. But if you approach it with an open mindset, people will
embrace the opportunity to connect with each other. The more you focus on building trust, the
easier the group will nd working together. It’s counterintuitive: you need to slow down to move
fast. For example, you might take the time to:

ask people what they’re hoping to achieve during the workshop and draft shared objectives
use post-it notes when coming up with ideas so that everyone contributes
resolve con icts by listening to what people need (e.g. by asking, “what would that get you?”)”
— JONATHAN KAHN
ORGANISER OF AGILE CONTENT CONF

Define your collaborative mission

I t can be useful to decide on a short statement that acts as a starting point for the group.

Some people may call this a mission statement, others may prefer to use a proposition statement or an elevator
pitch (a marketing pitch that takes as long to deliver as it takes to get to the 5th oor).

Website projects may start with a hypothesis, or even a ‘provocation’ (if the intent is to shake things up a little).
These starting points are all slightly di erent, and you may choose to go for all of them. Whichever you choose,
you need a north star to guide you on your course.

Take some time to re ect on the answers to these questions:

What change do you hope to make with your group?

How do you de ne the thing you're working on?

Why does it exist?

Do you think each person in your group would give this answer?

Exercise 2
Establishing your North Star
⏲ FROM 30 MINS TO 2 HOURS
 FACE TO FACE ACTIVITY

Preparation
Give everyone 4 sticky notes. Ask them to write down their understanding of:

Note 1. What the project is

e.g. To co-write a story, to create a website, to invent a new project. (2 minutes)

Note 2. Who it is aimed at

e.g. for patients and carers, for people who like animals, for people who have trouble reading. (2 minutes)

Note 3. Why it is unlike similar projects

(these may be by competitors) (2 minutes)

Note 4. Finish this sentence, using snippets from the sentences above;
“By the end of this project we will have created….” (5 minutes)

When you’re done, place all notes together on the wall; all number 1 notes together, all number 2 notes etc.
Compare the language that each person has used.

Making your North Star

Now draw a large star on a piece of paper. Big enough to hold at least 5 sticky notes.

As a group the star can help you nd consensus and decide which concepts you all agree on.

If you agree on a concept (or a word in the phrase), stick it inside the star. Leave all other concepts on the
outside.

Now work as a group to reformulate your statement based on the concepts inside the star.
 OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES
📕 The 5 Whys activity. This activity helps you establish the root cause of a problem. By doing so, you create a
purposeful starting point from which to work.
startwithwhy.com

“ Tell your stakeholders that you believe it's possible to nd an approach that satis es everyone's
requirements, even though there are di erences of perspective. If you show that you believe
collaboration is possible, your stakeholders will be willing to try it.”
— JONATHAN KAHN
ORGANISER OF AGILE CONTENT CONF

Make a game plan: Aims, goals and objectives.

T o identify the place you want to reach on your journey, the entire team needs to do some vision work. In
order to do that, you need a realistic sense of the time frame and the resources you have available to you.

For short term projects, or even a single workshop session, setting intentions with your team will make sure that
you stay on track, and that everyone gets what they need from the time you have spent together.

Goals
You may want an output that is an 'artefact', or it may be a less tangible outcome like 'build a stronger
understanding'. It is important to agree on what your broad primary goal will be. Examples of goals might be
'make a new about us page for the site' or 'strengthen the team's ability to write content independently'.

What goals would make your collaboration successful?

What goals would make your project successful?

Objectives
Your objectives support your mission and help you reach your end point. They are often quanti able and can be
measured. An example of an objective might be 'increase likes by 20% in the next two months'.

What kind of objectives would make your collaboration successful?

What kind of objectives would make your project successful?

Aims
Your aims aren’t measurable. Aims can be stated as uid intentions or strategies that you might use to help you
meet your objectives.

What kind of aims would make your collaboration successful?

What kind of aims would make your project successful?

Tasks
These are the physical activities that the team undertakes to support the entire mission.
 What kind of tasks would make your collaboration successful?
What kind of tasks would make your project successful?

Activity
Develop your trajectory.
 FACE TO FACE ACTIVITY

1. Use a large roll of brown parcel paper (or the back of wrapping paper) to draw a very long arrow with a fat stem
and lots of space inside it to add sticky notes.
2. Put it up on the wall.
3. At the end of your arrow write a goal, perhaps with a date assigned to it.
4. Give the team di erent coloured sticky notes and ask them to stick their objectives, aims, goals, tasks and tactics
along the trajectory of the arrow to represent the timeline.
5. Use this timeline to develop a more formal project plan.

OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES

📕 The Graphic Game Plan, from Gamestorming by Dave Gray. This activity o ers a similar take on how to
develop your trajectory towards an end goal.

“ Set benchmarks:
Prepare Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure success. Uncover, discuss and validate
what great performance means for you as a team.

Understand the di erence between the overarching goal of impact versus project output. Delivery
is not necessarily success; it's about measuring the things that matter, that have impact.”
— MELISSA BREKER
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP

Start doing before you feel ready

 Define boundaries and constraints
“ Constraints can spur creativity and incite action, as long as you have the con dence to
embrace them”
— TOM & DAVID KELLEY, CREATIVE CONFIDENCE

Are we diverging or converging, and when?

R egardless of the project management methodology you use (e.g. Agile or Waterfall) or the goals you have
been set, there are some basic boundaries and stages you can de ne with your team as your project
progresses.

The ‘double-diamond’ is a famous phrase in the design world. It can help a team decide whether the phase they
are in is opening up a question, idea or set of ideas (without looking for a solution yet, rather a set of possible
solutions) or whether they are trying to narrow down the focus. Setting a time limit on your team’s divergent
thinking and convergent thinking ensures you don’t get lost in the research and dreaming phases of a project.

Discover Define Develop Deliver

insight into the problem the area to focus upon potential solutions Solutions that work
Problem Definition

Solution
Problem

Design Brief

ORIGINAL DIAGRAM CREDIT: DESIGN COUNCIL

What are your constraints and limits as a team?

“ Small budgets require brave ideas”
— DAVID HIEATT

I t can be extraordinarily helpful for a team to take time to decide on their own constraints, and then stick to
them.

Bringing schedules forward can spur teams of people into action, as can shrinking the budget, reducing the scope,
“ It can be incredibly helpful for a team to take time to decide on their own constraints, and
then stick to them”
 TWEET THIS
shrinking a goal, or reducing the number of resources. The more dramatic the constraint, the greater the result
often is. It’s a challenge though!

What constraints might you set to spur you on?

Don’t forget that conditions are never ideal. You may want to recall the phrase:

'This is the perfect starting point.'

FURTHER READING
📕 Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies. Random cards o ering interesting constraints for design projects.

What are your personal boundaries and constraints?

T ake a moment to think about any real boundaries or constraints you may have that your team need to
accommodate, or even embrace. These might include any of the following:

Physical or mental disabilities

e.g. Dyslexia or colour blindness

Physical or behavioural tendencies

e.g. Needing time alone to think

Access to tools and facilities

e.g. Not having the right equipment

Time
e.g. Not being able to be present when the team are meeting

Can you think of 6 more, even if they are constraints you wouldn't normally acknowledge?

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

A personal story:
Once upon a time I worked with a theatre group. We spent 2 months working together, devising our performance
for a puppet theatre, when I realised suddenly that I hadn’t had time and space to think alone. I was then given 2
 weeks and a budget of less than £90 pounds to produce a puppet. I needed a short amount of time away from the
group to design him and make him, based on our original group work together.

Every expert needs a de ned amount of time and space alone to gestate their ideas, and then a set time to bring
them back to the collaboration. It also helped me that the budget was well de ned too.

FURTHER READING
📕 The Design Council on the Double Diamond
Ben Sauer’s Double Diamond of Collaboration

Decide on your tools

M aking an early decision on tools and technologies you’re going to use to collaborate with your team
means you don’t have to disrupt the process later on.

It also means that your collaborators can organise all the training, passwords, and admin rights they need, before
disrupting the ow of the process.

When you’re deciding what form of collaborative tools to use, you might want to ask yourself these
questions:

1. How much training will each person need on the tools?

2. What kind of tool is easiest to dip into and catch up on the project status for those who are new to the project?
3. Who is responsible for deciding on the tools to use?

Communication
What tools will you use to speak, chat, and generally communicate with one another? What are the boundaries on
your communications?

e.g. Slack Email

Text Message Phone
Basecamp appear.in
Uberconference

Document creation and sharing

What tools will you be using to share documents? What kind of documents will you be sharing?

e.g. Your CMS Word

Pages Google Docs
GatherContent Basecamp
Dropbox

Scheduling, prioritisation, or backlog management

Where can people check in to make sure they are on track?

e.g. Google Docs Basecamp

Google Calendar GatherContent
Asana
 Workflow management
Where can people see what tasks have been allocated to them, and check in to make sure the process is going
smoothly?

e.g. Trello GatherContent

Google Spreadsheet

Snags, bugs, and feedback

Which tool is the easiest for everyone to keep track of (and allocate) changes to the work you’re doing,
particularly on digital products?

e.g. Google Docs Jira

Trello

TIP
💡 If you are working in the same space as your team, it can be helpful to put tasks and developments up on the
walls around you. It’s always easier to have something o ine to point at.

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GatherContent takes the chaos out of producing website content. Organise your website content in one place, ensuring
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Read more

Part 3
Maintain good practice
“ Other people have so much to recommend them, they will help you see outside yourself; they
will rally when you’re agging, they will o er ideas that push you to be better. But they will
also constantly require interaction and communication. Other people are your allies, but
that alliance takes sustained e ort to build. And you should be prepared for that, not
irritated by it.”
— ED CATMULL
FROM PIXAR, IN CREATIVITY INC.
 Maintain healthy communication
“ We seldom say ‘That’s a bad idea’ or ‘That won’t work’. When we disagree with someone
else’s idea, we push ourselves to ask ‘What would make it better? What can I add?... When a
group embraces the concept of building on the ideas of others it can unleash all sorts of
creative energy.”
— TOM & DAVID KELLEY, CREATIVE CONFIDENCE

“ The secret to the momentum and ow in any successful collaboration lies in how people
communicate with one another”
TWEET THIS

T


he secret to the momentum and ow in any successful collaboration lies in the way people communicate
with one another, and the way they set up their communications. Part of the art of good communication, is
to become self-aware of your own style of communication.

Take a moment to re ect on the way you communicate. There are no right or wrong answers to these
questions.

How might you describe your tendencies when you communicate?

 How do other people receive the way you communicate?

What would you like to improve about the way you communicate?

Do you plan what you are going to say while people are speaking?

How do you deal with confrontation or rejection?

Do you make eye contact with people?

Are you more of a yes person than a no person, or the other way around?

What is your sense of timing like?

How do you deliver di cult feedback?

If you feel comfortable doing so, it can be helpful to share these answers with your group. In this way, you can
manage expectations and be aware of one another’s communication styles.

Techniques for collaborative communication abound and could ll an entire book in themselves. Here are two
communication techniques you can try:

Technique 1
Develop your listening skills.
 FACE TO FACE ACTIVITY

“ Real conversation is where people speak, listen, and have the potential to be changed.”
— LEE SIMPSON
IMPROVISOR, THE COMEDY STORE, LONDON

We often say "He or she didn't listen" when we don't feel we've been heard. Being able to listen attentively is
about being non-judgmental when someone is speaking, and temporarily abandoning your plan for what you
are going to say next. This is a helpful exercise that allows you to loosen your grip on the direction you want
something to take.

Exercise:
Sit opposite a partner. You are both going to tell a story, one word at a time without pausing for too long to think
about the next word. For example:
 Person 1: Once
Person 2: upon
Person 1: a
Person 2: time
Person 1: high
Person 2: in
Person 1: the
Person 2: sky

Do this for 5 minutes, and then spend some time analysing the results. How did you feel? Often people feel
frustration that the story is not going in the direction they intended, or that it takes funny turns.

Inspired by: an improvisation theatre workshop with Lee Simpson

Technique 2
Dealing with conflict without judgement, blame, or
criticism
👤 INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY

It is somewhat inevitable that you will hit challenging patches in your communication with collaborators.
Approaching a con ict in this way reduces the level of antagonism between two people. The more pressure that is
on, the more a deadline looms, it can be easy to fall into unhelpful patterns of communication.

To help you express what is working for you, and what is not, try this exercise to form sentences that do not
blame or criticise. Try it alone rst, before working with others.

1. Choose a situation in which you felt con icted. E.g. I was o ended by my colleague, they talked over the top of me.
2. Make an observation by saying "I observed that (I saw, heard, felt, or noticed)" E.g. "I noticed that you started
talking when I was talking"
3. Say how you feel about it in emotional terms "I felt... mad/ sad/ angry/ scared" E.g. "I felt annoyed."
4. Now say what you need or what you value E.g. "Because I needed to express my opinion."
5. Make a clear request. E.g. "Could you give me a moment to express my opinion."

Advice from our experts on effective communication:

“ All teams manage a certain level of chaos and uncertainty. Through clear expectations, you can
reduce con icts and assumptions, set standards, and improve alignment.

Keep people informed and be transparent about how decisions get made, when, and how. Let
them know about your needs when it comes to timing, material, and other support. Identify risks
in advance to reduce re ghting and last minute requests.”
— MELISSA BREKER
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP
 CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP

“ The key to resolving con ict is to discover the underlying needs that drive our di erent strategies.
Don't assume you understand why someone is asking for a speci c route or strategy. Instead, ask
them what that strategy would achieve. Once you understand the needs, you can invite people to
work together to nd solutions that meet everyone's needs, without compromise.”
— JONATHAN KAHN
ORGANISER OF AGILE CONTENT CONF

“ I've found the most important thing to making us active listeners is to remember: other team
member's motivations are their own, and people engage best when they understand how your
motivations line up with theirs. Remember that understanding what people are going for, and
their concerns about getting there, is essential to you getting your own things done.”
— NOZ URBINA
CONTENT STRATEGIST & FOUNDER, URBINA CONSULTING

FURTHER READING
📕 Non-violent Communication, by Marshall Rosenberg. Further sources and explanation.
Clean Language, by David Grove

Establish team rituals

E very time people begin a piece of work together, they automatically begin to establish a culture with a ‘way’
of doing things.

Having regular team rituals can help to make this culture explicit for the following reasons:

If a newcomer joins, they know how to t in easily

If there is a problem or dispute, it can be sorted out face to face (even if it’s over a video conference call)
When the team members can relate socially, people connect and collaborate with greater ease
Rituals create a sense of routine, and a place to come back to, particularly when the pressure is on

Sometimes a team’s way of working grows organically and comfortably over time but it can be helpful to stop,
take stock and decide on the habits and rituals that would be helpful for you. You can set up rituals to occur daily,
weekly or monthly, or at intervals that suit the team.

Ritual 1
The 5 minute daily standup
The Agile methodology popularised this method of allowing teams (particularly groups of people working
together from di erent disciplines) to check in with one another daily to talk about their project progress.

At the beginning of the day, each person stands up, and in turn they state:
1. What they did yesterday
2. What they're going to do today
3. What their blockers are

For dispersed teams, a video conference and a daily stand up call can be crucial for keeping the team on track.

Ritual 2
The meeting check-in
Do you ever nd yourself trying to mind-read a person’s mood during a meeting? We often bring feelings and
moods into our meetings that have little to do with our collaborators. It can be healthy to nd out ‘where people
are at’ before the meeting starts.

Here’s how it works:

1. Once everyone is settled, say something to the e ect of “I’d like to ask how everyone is?” or “Let’s do a quick
check in, just to see where everyone is at before we start.”
2. Go round the table and hear everyone’s statement. The emphasis should be on how people are feeling, rather
than their opinions about the meeting.
3. Try to prevent people responding to each other’s statements. Don’t comment on people’s feelings if you can help
it, and certainly don’t disagree with anything anyone says. You don’t want to start a discussion.
4. You might want to check out at the end of the meeting. In our company we found these to be particularly fruitful
in unexpected ways.

Set up governance and a workflow

G overnance is a term that loosely refers to the standards, policies, responsibilities and guidelines that holds
the project or a team together. Once you’ve set up healthy collaborative practices, governance can help set
these practices in stone and future-proof your work.

As your project progresses, di erent people may be involved in the decision making at various stages. Having a
set of rules, clear documentation and allocating responsibilities to key individuals means that you don’t have to
down tools and go into tactical debates at each turning point.

Clear governance helps you:

Maintain consistency
Know who is in charge of certain aspects of the project
Stay on-brand
Ful l your project goals
Scale your project

Even if the individuals on a project change, go on holiday, or if the project stops and starts, having a clear
governance framework means that you won’t blow o course.
Here is an example of a set of governance tools for content projects:

A tone of voice document for writers and editors

A style guide for writers and editors
A set of content principles
A schedule for the content production
A work ow: a framework that states who is conducting writing, editing and fact checking at each stage

SAMPLE WORKFLOW FROM GATHERCONTENT

An example of a set of governance tools for digital projects in general:

Documentation on a digital strategy

Documentation on a digital policy
Documentation on digital standards
Brand guidelines
Editorial guidelines
An organisational chart of the digital team and their place in the organisation
A framework that states who will be editing and signing o pieces of work at each stage

FURTHER READING
📕 Managing Chaos, Digital Governance by Design, by Lisa Welchman, Rosenberg Books

Introduce new members of the team

 ntroducing a new collaborator to the team takes time and careful attention to detail. No matter how long this

IComfort
person will be working with you, make sure that you dedicate time and adequate resources to handing over
the information they need to do their job.

Consult Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to make sure this person has the facilities they need in order to be able to do
their job.

Context
Take time to o er your new collaborator a lot of context around the task they will be working on, this will make it
much more meaningful to them, and allow them to see their place in the big picture. O er them raw materials to
start with, as well as any information they need about your group values, mission and any other language you
have created as a group.

Instructions and managing expectations

Clearly set out your expectations in relation to this person’s role, including the amount of time you will need
them to collaborate for, what you want them to do, and what you hope the outcome to be.

Time alone
Allow time for this person to get up to speed. They may need some independent time to work through any
existing documentation, and begin to formulate a plan.

Challenge
It is ok to o er this person a challenge that they can get stuck into straight away. Keep the rst challenge small, so
that you can enter a feedback loop as soon as possible.

Feedback
Take a moment to think about the kind of feedback you would find most
useful.

F inding a time and an appropriate method for delivering feedback to your collaborators can be challenging if
it isn’t baked into the process from the beginning. You may want to agree how and when you deliver
feedback to one another.

If you wish to give someone feedback, you may want to check whether they are in the right frame of mind to
receive it. Asking people if they are available and willing to receive feedback is a good way to prepare the ground.

"Would now be a good time to o er you some feedback?"

Constructive criticism.
Delivering constructive criticism to a team member can be a sensitive issue. It is important to speak with positive
intent and get straight to the point. Here are some ideas on how to frame the conversation.

Make the content of your feedback:

1. Timely - When did it happen, and what happened?

 2. Relevant - Who and what was it in relation to?
3. Speci c - What are the exact details and what was the impact?

Spend some time thinking about your approach to giving feedback, and make sure that it is OPEN:

Open Minded - Ask the person what their perception of the situation is? Is it di erent from yours?
Positive - Ask yourself ‘What is good about this situation?’ and identify a positive reason for having the
discussion.
Empowering - Ask the individual what they think the best solution might be, and what support they might need
to act on the feedback.
Non-judgemental - Describe the situation without bias and help the recipient of your feedback work towards
their own conclusion.
Finally, make sure you agree on the outcome of the discussion, so that you both know what you are taking away
from it.

FURTHER READING
📕 Non-violent communication: Alanguage of life, by Marshall Rosenberg.

“ Giving feedback:
Personally, I love giving feedback about content in critique sessions. They are a place where the
whole team (designers, developers and content) sit around and talk about content that has been
produced. My rules are:
remember that everyone did the best job they could at the time
talk about the product only, never the person
constructive comments only
no-one has to defend a decision

Receiving feedback:
You know you can stay quiet, take it all on board and then say, 'I need to think about that and
get back to you’? A lot of people don’t do that; they feel they have to justify their position then and
there. If the person pushes for a response, go to HR. That is not ok. I use this technique to give
myself some space. To think about my response in a measured way, not as a quick reaction.

The number one rule: that’s a person in front of you. Whether you are taking or giving feedback,
that is a human right there. Unless they are your best friend in all the world, you don’t know
what they are going through. Respect that unknown.”
— SARAH RICHARDS
CONTENT STRATEGIST, TRAINER & CONSULTANT
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Read more

Part 4
Reap the rewards
“ Take the time to review the good, bad and downright ugly aspects of your projects, discuss
these with the team and ensure you are continually improving the way you work. There’s no
place for smoke and mirrors when it comes to successful collaboration. Disseminate all
feedback, and don’t forget to celebrate the wins!”
— ROB MILLS
CONTENT STRATEGIST AT GATHERCONTENT
 Broadcasting and education
Every time you collaborate with a group of people, you will have learned something that will be helpful to others.
At Clearleft, every time we nish a project we broadcast and educate the team with our learnings via the medium
of blog posts, case studies, and conference talks. We also do talks for the rest of our own team, so that they might
learn from our experiences.

In the excitement of nishing a collaboration, it can be all too easy to sprint to the end line whilst forgetting that
it may be more helpful to pass the baton to other people in your organisation. The most sustainable approach is
to empower other people to follow in your footsteps, and o er them the opportunity to use the work you have
done to enhance their own. You may wish to set up training sessions, or put some design time into creating a
helpful document than can be referred to by anyone who takes over your work.

What do you feel you learned from this collaboration?

What can the rest of your company learn from the work you've done?

How would it be best to communicate it to the wider organisation?

What's the best format for wrapping up the work you've done?

Run a retrospective

O nce your collaborative process is complete, it’s time to run a retrospective (or more sinister people might
call it a 'Post-Mortem').

According to Ed Catmull of Pixar and Disney fame, there are 5 reasons to spend time looking back on what
you have done:
1. “Consolidate what's been learned” - bring clarity to the lessons learned on the project
2. “Teach others who weren't there” - use it as a forum for learning about what others went through
3. “Don't let resentments fester” - allow closure on issues that came up in the project
4. “Use the schedule to force re ection” - this forces people to spend time re ecting before the post-mortem has
even happened
5. “Pay it forward” - raise questions to be asked on the next project
(From Creativity Inc. p.216)

Activity
Walking the timeline
 FACE-TO-FACE ACTIVITY

During a recent retrospective, our project manager Matt Matheson asked us to physically walk through the
timeline of a year long project.

Using four pieces of paper evenly spaced out on the oor, we took it in turns to walk the route in front of the
team and mark moments which were memorable for us along the way.

This activity gave insight into people’s di erent perspectives and the meaningful moments for them.

Inspired by a workshop with Matt Matheson at Improvising Change in Brighton

Celebrate

W hen we work on projects, we can often spend the journey being xated on the outcome, and on ‘getting
to be’ a success. But how often do we celebrate that success?

Celebration can be as small as a compliment or acknowledgement, or as large as a party.

Take a moment to re ect on a project you have completed:

What constituted success during the project?

What constituted success at the end of the project?

Did you celebrate your successes along the trajectory of the project?

Did you celebrate at the end of the project?

How did you celebrate?

How would you like to celebrate success in future?

Did you achieve what you wanted to?

 Thank you for reading this book

C ollaboration is exercise. On a daily basis that exercise of collaboration practically demands that every
group member thinks about their own ‘way of being’ and takes responsibility for creating the conditions in
which a collaboration can thrive. Every day is a new opportunity to look at how you can improve collaborative
practices with everyone you work with.

As a result of reading this book, take a moment to think about how you intend to approach your next
collaboration and write your intentions below.

These are the things I intend to carry into my next collaboration:

1.
2.
3.

Good luck!

Ellen de Vries

About the Author

Ellen de Vries
CONTENT STRATEGIST, CLEARLEFT
Ellen de Vries is a Content Strategist at Clearleft, a strategic design consultancy based in Brighton, UK. Being a Content
Strategist is by nature a collaborative role; on any one day she might be working with a range of people, from designers
and developers to animators and AI experts.

Over the last two years, she’s been working with brands such as Penguin Random House, big household names in UK
retail and a charity who campaignfor young people’s human rights. The outcomes of her work are wide ranging, from
creating messaging and stories for cross-channel digital experiences, to brand language and tone of voice shifts, to
breaking down silos and structuringcontent teams. She's also a regular speaker and workshop leader for national and
international conferences.

In a world where digital design practices are becoming increasingly fragmented, Ellen’s mission is to work with
multidisciplinary groups to establish a shared language that gives them a spark and propels their collaboration forward.

Contact Ellen
🌎 Website  Twitter ✉ Email

About where Ellen works

Clearleft are a strategic design consultancy based in Brighton, UK. The team of researchers, strategists, designers,
UXers and technologists build vision, carve out strategies and work with product and service teams to implement
design. They’ve worked with an array of British household names like John Lewis and the BBC and global brands like
Penguin and Virgin.

Their range of work varies vastly;from designing straight-up websites to adventures in personalisation, and from
pioneering work in pattern libraries to developing experiential eco-systems. Over the past 12 years the team have
become known worldwide for their dedication to knowledge sharing in the industry as speakers, authors and regular
curators of design and leadership conferences.

Our Expert Contributors

Sarah Richards
CONTENT STRATEGIST, TRAINER & CONSULTANT
Sarah’s been working in content for far longer than she admits. She started as a graphic designer, fell into copywriting
and was shoved, quite unceremoniously, into content quality assurance.
After working at Saatchi’s and Ogilvy’s, Sarah took on a short stint in government.
Ten years later, she was still there and led the Government Digital Service’s content team to cutting government
content by 82% for GOV.UK. She’s banned words from Whitehall and her team won the D&AD Black Pencil in Writing
for Design – the only time a blackpencil (the top accolade) has been won in that category for the 16 years the global
competition has been running.
Sarah now consults and provides trainingin content strategy and content design to governments and organisations
around the world.

Noz Urbina
CONTENT STRATEGIST
Noz Urbina is a globally recognised content strategist and modeller. He’s well known as a pioneer in customer journey
mapping and adaptive content modelling to support personalised, contextually relevant content for omnichannel
experiences. He is also co-author of the book Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and
bene ts
Jonathan Kahn
ORGANISER OF AGILE CONTENT CONF
Jonathan Kahn organises agile content conf, where you can learn practices to help teams work together on content. He
also organises the London Agile Content Meetup which has 2000 members. He’s @lucidplot on twitter.

Melissa Breker
CONTENT STRATEGIST, COACH, AND FACILITATOR AT BREKER GROUP
Melissa is the founder of Breker Group Consulting.
With over 15 years of experience leading marketing, content strategy, and social media projects for agencies and large
corporations, Melissa loves to make a di erence through content strategy and governance.
She has worked in multiple industries with large and entrepreneurial organizations to tie business goals and audience
requirements together to create measurable results.
She works with creative agencies, customer experience teams, product developers, and marketing strategists to inspire
and evolve teams to generate results.
From technology to government and non-pro t organizations, Melissa takes a collaborative, systematic, thoughtful, and
analytical approach to the projects that she completes.
As a content consultant, speaker and teacher, she’s developed courses for the University of British Columbia, Langara
College, Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.
Melissa is passionate about helping teams deliver results through consulting, training, and workshops.

Robert Mills
CONTENT STRATEGIST, GATHERCONTENT
Rob is a Content Strategist at GatherContent, responsible for developing, implementing, measuring and re ning their
content strategy. He also collaborates with other content folk as the editor-in-chief of the GatherContent blog.
He is a journalism graduate, ex-BBC audience researcher, and former studio and project manager. Robert is a published
author and has written for leading web publications Net Mag, 24 Ways, Smashing Magazine, WebTuts, Shopify, UX
Matters, Content Marketing Institute and UX Booth.
When he isn’t talking, writing, or reading about content, you can nd him looking for typewriters to add to his
collection, travelling whenever possible, or being held for ransom by his two cats.

About GatherContent
We’re here because content matters. It’s crucial and should be seen as a source of value, not just another cost. But
the tools that exist are ill- tting and fail content producers. We’re changing these accepted, broken ways of
working on content to help teams collaborate on content at scale.

Our online platform helps teams easily organise and produce content. Born from rst-hand experience of the
stress associated with wrangling content for websites, and content not being given the respect it deserves,
GatherContent is working to change that through education, advocacy and better ways of working.

Since launching in 2012 we've helped tens of thousands of teams, across 135 countries, avoid hours of pain. We
continually strive for a better way to organise, structure, produce, manage and migrate content. We’re ghting the
good ght against bad content.

You can improve the way you work with content too. Learn more about our platform.

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