Collaborate widely
Collaborate widely
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What does it mean to collaborate widely?
To collaborate widely means involving a broad range of stakeholders, experts and clients throughout the design, development and deployment processes to leverage diverse perspectives, skills and resources and ensure that various viewpoints are considered in decision-making.
Why is this important?
Collaborating widely is crucial for addressing complex challenges that require expertise from multiple disciplines and for engaging various user communities to identify and understand their needs, preferences and pain points. With diverse perspectives, your team can learn from others and minimize mistakes more effectively.
How to do it
These are suggested steps on how to collaborate widely. Depending on where you’re at in your process, you might not need to follow every step.
Discover
- Identify key disciplines. Ensure that your team includes experts from all necessary functions, like user experience design, development, marketing, legal and data analysis. Establish clear objectives.
- Consult with your experts. Consult with stakeholders and experts including subject matter experts, internal teams, external partners and regulatory bodies. Learn about leading best practices.
- Do user experience (UX) research. Engage with a diverse sample of users through surveys, workshops or user interviews to gather feedback. Focus on understanding their needs, the problems they want solved and how they envision your product to work.
- Document and share your insights. Compile all insights, research and decisions, and share them with your stakeholders to ensure transparency and maintain alignment as the development of your product progresses.
Build
- Establish a cross-functional team. Assemble a cross-functional team with experts from various sectors like policy, UX design, development operations, marketing and project management.
- Communicate clear roles and responsibilities. Clearly define the roles and responsibilities for each team member from the start, including the scope and expected outcomes. You may do this by developing a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed) for each task and decision. Save your document on a collaborative platform like SharePoint and share it with the entire team.
- Use collaborative tools. If you are building journey maps, wireframes and prototypes, use tools like Miro or Figma.
- Prioritize collaborative decision-making. Have everyone contribute to the decision-making process for the development of your product. Implement feedback loops where teams can review each other’s work and catch and decide on necessary changes.
Test
- Test widely. Conduct usability testing sessions with a diverse sample of users, gathering feedback on usability, functionality and overall user experience.
- Check in with your experts. Schedule regular review sessions with stakeholders and experts to discuss progress and ensure that the product is meeting expected goals.
Monitor and iterate
- Monitor progress. Ensure a structured process and transparency for handling changes in requirements, scope or timelines, with input from all relevant stakeholders. Maintain a log of key decisions, including the rationale behind them, to ensure transparency and accountability. regularly review and share potential risks and implement mitigation strategies.
- Iterate your product. Facilitate continuous collaboration and iterative development. Develop prototypes to quickly validate ideas across a broad audience, then iterate based on feedback from users. This allows for flexibility and transparency in addressing any changes in scope or requirements.
- Maintain open communication channels. Establish regular check-ins with your users to share status updates, discuss challenges and make necessary adjustments. Use collaborative tools like SharePoint or GCTools to keep everyone informed and aligned. Ensure that information is easily accessible to everyone involved.
Resources
Principles
- Transparency
- Open communication
- Inclusive participation
- Use of collaborative tools
- Flexibility
Tools for collaboration
Considerations
Tools and resources
Talent
Skills to have on your team.
- Dialogue facilitation
- Communications
- Community engagement
- User-centric design
- DevOps
- Data analysis
- Data visualization
GC policy instruments
Help us improve
This work is iterative, and we will continue to improve on it based on your feedback.
Share your thoughts and suggestions by email: servicedigital-servicesnumerique@tbs-sct.gc.ca