Collaboration

Introduction
Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in the world of technical communication. Technical communicators today are often expected to collaborate on projects of varying sizes, as the independent creation of text and other information is becoming less commonplace. With more and more technical communicators working remotely, the collaborative opportunities afforded by the cloud and other share-based technologies allow technical communicators greater access to the creation and sharing of information.

Why Is Collaboration Important in TC?
Technical communication benefits from collaboration for multiple reasons. Besides the obvious advantage of promoting quicker and more effective work, working in teams can also raise motivation levels and make team members more responsible. Working toward the same goal has the ability to inspire a strong sense of purpose in each contributor which often leads to greater productivity. Three of the most prominent reasons why technical communication collaboration is important are flexibility, increased productivity, and innovation.

Flexibility
The improved flexibility afforded a company through collaboration is one reason why collaboration has become so commonplace in technical communication. As collaboration improves so too does a team's ability to handle sudden change. Teamwork makes it easier to pivot when customer preferences change or disruptive technologies enter the scene.5 Since a great deal of a TC's work is now done remotely, the flexibility offered by virtual collaboration minimizes the need for finances and infrastructure as well.6

Increased Productivity
With multiple minds working toward a shared aim, the likelihood of the most effective problem solving solutions emerging in shorter time is increased. A collaborative culture increases the ability to bring products (often artifacts in the case of TC) to completion quicker, and in turn the entire organization's ability to create value improves. The amount of time afforded through increased communication is vital to higher outputs in productivity. A side benefit of increased productivity of collaborative groups is increased individual productivity. When any team uses collaborative tools to increase efficiency, individual goals are met faster and with higher quality results. Some companies have shown increases in the region of 20-25% after implementing collaborative processes and networking tools.5

Innovation
Bringing together different minds on a single project can lead to friction between personalities, but ultimately the end product is more often than not innovative and vibrant ideas. Larger and more diverse team teams generally produce better concepts. Consumer preference for concepts developed by teams of diversity of four or more showed an average of 18% improvement over concepts developed by two or fewer contributors.4

Remote Work and the Cloud
Technical writers are working remotely now more than ever, and the use of the Cloud in collaboration is ubiquitous in the field of technical communication. Moving technical writing to the cloud has major appeal for compelling reasons: lower up-front costs, the immediate availability of software tools, easier collaboration among coauthors, seamless content reviews, and varied storage options.3 Additionally, a cloud-based authoring environment offers the flexibility of saving versions of documents either on a technical writer’s local hard drive or in the Cloud. Multiple options for document storage and retrieval ensure the availability of backup copies and access to other content assets. Enabling shared access to files in the Cloud provides a viable and attractive solution for collaboration; and using a Cloud-based authoring environment fosters the seamless integration of new technical writers into a team, without the wait time that software installation and configuration typically requires. In summary, a Cloud-based solution facilitates collaborative authoring.3



Social Media, Shared Document Workspaces, Video, and Other Tools
Because social media make it convenient for people to participate in the work of their organizations, they are having a profound effect on the ways that information is created and distributed in the working world. An organization that relies on social media can tap into the knowledge and ideas of everyone in the organization—as well as many others outside the organization.11

Shared document workspaces, such as Microsoft SharePoint and Google Docs, have become an essential component of collaboration in technical writing. A shared document workspace archives all revisions made by each team member, so that the team can create a single document that incorporates selected revisions. Some shared document workspaces enable a user to download the document, revise and then upload it again, making it possible to work on a document off-line.11

Video and videoconferencing technology allows two or more people at different locations to simultaneously see and hear one another as well as exchange documents, share data on computer displays, and use electronic whiteboards. There are also large, dedicated systems that require extensive electronics, including cameras, servers, and a fiber-optic network or high-speed telephone lines.11

SMS and IM messaging technologies are also commonly used in collaborative projects, and texting is the fastest-growing technology for exchanging messages electronically because most people keep their phones nearby.11

Content Collaboration
Unifying technical communication and marketing teams produces an effective form of content collaboration. Since technical communicators are content creation and publishing professionals, they typically have a more defined and structured approach to content delivery that marketing teams can learn from.7 The integration of people, processes and technologies is necessary for content collaboration to be effective. When technical communicators and marketing teams (people) come to a consensus regarding a unified process in overall content strategy and creation methods (processes), then content management systems, collaborative editing tools, content analytic tools, or content marketing platforms (technologies) can be used for the most effective content collaboration.8

Advantages

 * Collaboration draws on a greater knowledge and skill base---a collaborative document can be more comprehensive and more accurate than a single author document, as no one person can be an expert writer, graphic designer, editor, manager, etc.
 * Collaboration provides a better idea of how an audience will read a document. Each collaborator acts as an audience, offering more questions and suggestions than one person could while writing alone.
 * Collaboration improves communication among employees since many collaborators share a goal. As a result, they learn about each other’s roles, responsibilities, and frustrations. Employees learn and teach each other through the collaborative process. 11

Disadvantages

 * Collaboration can lead to inequitable workloads. Despite the project leader’s best efforts, some will end up doing more work than others.
 * Collaboration can lead to interpersonal conflict since technical writers can disagree about the best way to create the document or about the document itself. Such disagreements can hurt working relationships during the project and long after.
 * Collaboration can yield disjointed documents. Sections can contradict or repeat each other or be written in contrasting styles.11

Cross-Cultural and International Collaboration
Technical communicators find themselves working in an increasingly global-oriented atmosphere. Collaboration with multinational companies and their employees requires cross-cultural and international collaboration. There are two important factors to take in account when considering cross-cultural collaboration:

Establishing Trust
At the heart of cross-cultural collaboration is the universal need for trust---trust is the foundation for joint ventures/collaborations.

People from cultures that rely on tradition may find it difficult to trust people from cultures that find truth in scientific fact. Also of great importance is recognizing whether one is interacting with team members from individualist or collectivist cultures. Collectivists are more likely to trust in-group members than out-group members; they will be more cautious and require more time to develop trust in out-group members. Conversely, individualists are more likely to trust strangers until they prove themselves untrustworthy.

Identifying Sources of Conflict
Beliefs, attitudes, and norms are often unconscious and contribute to cross-cultural sources of conflict. One effective way to navigate this is by constructing "sophisticated stereotypes." This strategy for making comparisons is useful as long as its limitations are recognized. Another method is referred to as "sense making," or a process of deriving meaning from situations and their outcomes. Cultural sense making is an ongoing process involving an iterative cycle of sequential events—(1) framing the situation, (2) making attributions, and (3) selecting a script—that is undergirded by constellations of cultural values and cultural history.