Culture of Collaboration
In this course, we were tasked with understanding the collaboration dynamics and successful practices of organizations, as well as their key issues, in the context of a current real-world business case study. This case study method is paramount to a DMGT collaboration learning strategy. Our research approach included the research of ideation activities utilizing IBM as a subject matter expert (SME) and real- world business reference source for a collaborative culture having definable, repeatable, measurable, and actionable processes across diverse business areas. As a global company, IBM as an SME informs us as to how corporations collaborate at a distance and how to teach and train SCAD students for this inevitability in real-world projects. Additionally, much like our own class, IBM employees learn to collaborate across multi- disciplines and cultures.
The students were from a wide range of disciplines—from architecture and industrial design to photography and marketing—as well as diverse cultural backgrounds—China, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Texas and Venezuela.
For Fall 2016, the DMGT 747 Collaboration at a Distance course was led by Professor Tom Hardy.
How might we understand and develop an education process to more effectively learn about collaboration?
Secondary Research
We identified nine different stages in collaborative learning. For each stage we defined a number, name, activity and examples. We also identified pains and gains. Pains are behaviors that could limit the development of a project, while gains or values refer to the behaviors that need to be developed in order to successfully pass to the next stage. This graphic shows how every stage is defined in the diagram.
Collaborative Learning Theory and Techniques
As we began researching collaborative learning theory and practice, we looked at different academic institutions such as MIT and Stanford to see how they approached the subject. We also looked at the literature they referenced and found the text Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. Another important source of data was The Grove’s Team Performance Model, which defines stages in the developmentof a project and also presents the best practices necessary in team dynamics. The data from these two main sources, together with the additional data points gathered from other academic institutions and secondary sources, allowed us to form our own synthesis.
Corporate Collaborative Culture and Practice
We investigated different collaborative corporate culture cases such as Lego, Microsoft, Adidas, NASA, IDEO, Amazon in order to understand the current corporate culture landscape in terms of size and scale and in order to be able to overlay with the academic curriculum. Attributes we found to be overlapping during the corporate culture and collaboration research included: knowledge management, experience, verbal communication (high interaction), have common goals (alignment), listen to others, internal & external feedback loops, adaptability and participatory engagement. Personal growth factors ranged from curiosity, embrace uncertainty, balance logic and imagination to body & mind, and make new connections. From there we were able to overlay the data into the phases of Pre-project, Before, During, and After as well as the same nine stages of the collaborative learning wheel diagram.
IBM
We investigated the different collaborative learning programs IBM offers today. Under the IBM Bootcamp banner, there are several flavors ranging from the flagship Bootcamp, a 13-week onboarding program for early career professionals and new college hires geared toward IBM Design Thinking and understanding corporate practices, to the one-day Executive Bootcamp that introduces the language and framework of IBM Design Thinking to internal leaders from senior vice president down to director-level executives within the product units, so they can understand what their teams are saying and how they are working.
We found a blog by a recent IBM Bootcamper that documented his journey through the program, so we used this as a base to design a wheel diagram. As these IBM programs are iterative, the stages do not match exactly those of the academic and corporate sections, but they contain similar content, patterns and process. We added direct quotations from the blogger so you can get an idea of what he was feeling during each stage of the experience.
Primary Research
For primary research the team conducted observations and interviews. Observations at different sections of the collaborative learning center (CLC) courses, which are project-based classes where students from different majors come together to work with real industry partners under the leadership of two faculty members. We also interviewed IBM collaborative learning leaders, SCAD CLC faculty and a TV producer to discover the facilitators’ perspective on collaboration. For the team members’ perspective, we interviewed IBM collaborative team members and SCAD CLC student team members.
The team made observations of four different CLC groups in one class to understand the unique dynamics. From this observations several considerations were made in terms of three categories: Key aspects to avoid, key aspects to encourage and key aspect to adapt.
Synthesis
To affinitize the information gathered in the interviews, we decided to use Empathy Maps. This way we could classify the information according to our users’ profile (leaders or team members) and detect important characteristics according to what they hear, what they feel and think, what they see, what they say and do, and what they perceive as a pain or a gain during the collaborative process. From those two Empathy Maps for leaders and team members, we synthesized the information and pulled out insights from each type of user and also detected characteristics that apply to any collaborative process in general. We then created a composite Empathy Map with pains and gains that highlights the insights gleaned from the research.
Prototype
As we have discussed throughout the project, the focus of the curricula is to develop the skills necessary for the students to thrive in a corporation by creating a collaborative culture that resonates with the vision, values and culture of any corporation. To design the first prototype, we needed to first identify the course description, goals and student learning outcomes, which are the three pillars of the SCAD syllabus and which in essence serve as the contract between the students and the university, guaranteeing academic standards rigor. We looked back at the insights and realized those for the leaders matched clearly the course description, while those from the students were obviously course goals and the general were the student learning outcomes.
Course Description
The complexity, speed and scale demanded by global business requires design professionals to work with and across a wide range of disciplines, cultures, languages, attitudes and experiences. This course provides students with opportunities to learn how to communicate explicitly and effectively with partners who are co-located and/or at a distance. Students will work in groups to achieve coordinated resolutions through the assessment of corporate-culture case studies, development of a shared vision, self-organization and creative approaches to team dynamics. They will participate in exercises that emphasize transparency, emotional intelligence, leadership, decision-making, communication, and collaboration skills.
Course Goals
- Learn the importance of determining as a group the best tools for the development of each project.
- Learn to develop a project-specific common language derived from the exchange of multiple points of view throughout the collaborative endeavor.
- Learn leadership and self-management skills which are essential to a collaborative environment.
- Learn to listen, understand and adapt to other group members’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Learn about corporate culture dynamics and how to evaluate them critically to achieve alignment.
- Learn to communicate ideas effectively through different platforms throughout the process.
- Learn to manage team dynamics and foster team alignment.
Learning Outcomes
- Develop an understanding of relationship management and collaboration based on theory and experiential learning.
- Articulate the meaning and value of collaboration through written and spoken word as well as visualizations.
- Work with organizations to research and evaluate the role collaboration plays in their dynamics.
- Establish a communication structure and protocol within a team that informs behaviors and expectations.
- Develop methods to communicate ideas effectively through media without face-to-face contact.
- Evaluate ways to reframe personal work in order to effectively convey ideas to others.
Components
Readings
We first reviewed the original reading assignments for DMGT 747 and 750 and then compared with our secondary and primary research to identify eight topics critical to the new collaboration course: Emotional Intelligence, Corporate Culture, Teams, Collaborative Learning Theory, Conflict Resolution, Leadership/Facilitation, Virtual/Distance, Tools/Environments. For each topic, we assigned required readings as well as recommended readings from a range of sources including academic articles and foundational texts to classic and contemporary business books and case studies. For each topic, two students will be assigned to lead a Reading Salon in class where they develop an immersive and/or interactive experience for their classmates to review and reinforce the content.
Activities
We looked back at the different stages we established from our research and how these were spread out during our 10 weeks. We decided to look for related activities and study how they could be integrated in our timeline. We subdivided the activities by their main purpose. However, some are repeated in different categories since slight changes in one same activity might allow it to work effectively for a different purpose.
Our first set of activities are orientation activities, these allow students to start to familiarize themselves with the projects and their role in the development. Next, we have writing activities. These provide opportunities for the students to practice their writing and critical analysis of literature and discussion topics. They also teach students how to communicate ideas in different ways, which is useful particularly for at-a-distance collaboration. Conflict resolution activities integrate discussion and reflection to ensure alignment between the team at different times during the development of the project. Trust building activities includes games and are emphasized at the beginning of the class or project, but are encouraged to be repeated at different times to nurture the trust and relationship. Then we have discussion activities, which provide a framework for discussing topics, projects or ideas with all group members. And finally we have reflection activities. These can be included as a conclusion for other activities, or for feedback sessions between team members after big presentations.
Projects
Final Syllabus
Here is the final illustrated version of the course journey. By doing this, the student and faculty will be able to understand the performance and opportunity areas of this course. Hopefully, this framework leaves room for faculty flexibility and creativity.
