4 Qs - Collaborative Context

Quintessential Thought

We’re continuing in our series about facilitation, walking through the four phases of a collaborative conversation.

The first phase is Context. This is the foundation on which the rest of the collaborative interaction rests - it’s as critical as the wheels on a car being aligned before a road trip.

The questions to be answered in this phase are:

• What is our goal?

• Who needs to collaborate to achieve it?

You’re aiming for agreement on the desired outcome with buy-in from the participants and a collective ownership of the process to get there.

The tools for this phase depend on the situation:

• If these questions have already been answered previously, they may just need to be re-stated for a reminder and opportunity to refine.

• Other times, there is critical exploration here and you may need to facilitate through all four phases on these two questions before moving forward with the four phases to address the goal.

The main pitfall in this phase is to assume alignment and buy-in. We can unintentionally facilitate this by not soliciting feedback, declaring the answers, or presenting the answers in a way that isn’t easily editable. This is why writing them on a whiteboard is very helpful - the medium implies that it’s editable and open for discussion.

When there are latent reservations or confusion about the goal of the collaboration, they often come out during later phases. When you observe this, you can steer the conversation back to the Context phase to explore it further before proceeding.

Once the foundation of the Context is established, we can move onto exploring the options in the Diverge phase. This will be the focus of our next newsletter.

Quotes

"A goal properly set is halfway reached." — John Doerr

"Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment." — Jim Collins and Jerry Porra

“When you begin with a sense of deep alignment and have a nuanced understanding of, and empathy for, the other people involved, you will not only avoid arguments but also you’ll be able to see opportunities previously invisible. When you reduce unnecessary interpersonal friction, you unlock the true potential of teams.” — Alexandra Jamieson and Bob Gower

Quick Step

Before diving into the next collaborative conversation, ask someone to re-state the goal or desired outcome of the conversation.

Question

What costs have you observed from team members not being aligned on a goal or desired outcome?

Professional Scrum Product Owner, Mar 17-20

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