The psychology of collaboration

Meetings aren't for collaboration

Meetings should not be how you collaborate, yet most organisations use them for everything. Talking around a table or on a call is not usually productive for sharing and critiquing ideas. You typically face issues like:

• The loudest person in the room dominating conversation
• Politics and hierarchy validating certain people's ideas
• Those who can articulate well verbally being represented most
• A feeling of speed and urgency that preferences pace over quality

Meetings have a place, such as presentations, making decisions, status updates or one-way info sharing. They are not how you should be solving problems or coming up with ideas if you truly want the best of a team.

Workshops as a default

The alternative to meetings is workshops. To many, that's a scary word that comes with baggage; preparation, activities, time-blocks, ice-breakers, etc.

Ignore all that. You have to reconsider what a workshop really is, and how you can make them a lightweight and repeatable activity. One that you can employ anywhere, anytime. With as little preparation as possible, whenever you find yourself collaborating on ideas.

This will have to be custom to your organisation, but I've worked with agencies that facilitated this with whiteboard wall paint everywhere, or packets of index cards within arms reach at all times.

Design a lightweight activity that you can run with seconds of setup, that everyone knows how to start and contribute to.

The blueprint

This brings me to the blueprint for collaboration that I've refined with colleagues for years. An activity that you can do almost immediately, ensures equity in collaboration, and is what Jam Session is designed to enable.

Swipe to cycle cards

This three-step play is what Jam Session supports best. The plugin needs to be just as easy to pick up as index cards already on a table in front of you.

Quickly set an intention, have everyone scan a code, and start a session. Play back and group ideas in FigJam once the timer stops. Use the voting feature as required.

More than just cards

Equally important as the activity is the modes you allow ideas to be expressed through, because no two brains think alike.

Years ago I realised that I don't think like other designers — everyone found it weird that I needed a physical or digital canvas to work through ideas before I could picture them.

This is because my brain doesn't visualise things — I have aphantasia. If you ask me to picture an apple in my mind, and I close my eyes and try really hard, the best I can get is a barely-there, grey amorphous blob.

This is just one example of how idea generation differs between people. There's no definitive guide to this, but it's helpful to consider VARK learning styles. This theory describes 4 main categories of thinking:

• Visual, information seen and drawn
• Auditory, information heard and spoken
• Reading/Writing, information read and written
• Kinesthetic, information felt and physically moved

Jam Session and the blueprint above supports most modes of thinking. Combined, they support auditory, reading, writing and kinesthetic activities. The next step is visual — best handled with a sketching activity such as Crazy 8's.

We will be supporting sketching submissions in Jam Session soon. For now, wheel in the whiteboard or throw some paper at your colleagues and ask them to draw the thing if words aren't doing their idea justice.