Mastering Collaboration

Chapter 9. Find Out What Others Think

A team that has done a solid job of gathering diverse perspectives and exploring ideas will likely have arrived at some conclusions about how they can solve the challenge they face. Great collaborators will never stop being curious to put those ideas and conclusions to the test, and will continue to seek out the opinions of other people. And while putting ideas to the test is part of a process, it doesn’t have to take a long time to get to this point. Each cycle should set aside time to make sure that the ideas generated aren’t just put into action without feedback about how they perform (Figure 9-1).

Figure 9-1. This stage of the team’s cycle will give you valuable feedback, even early on in the process

Running through the process in a few days or a week and then repeating it to refine further can be more useful than spending a great deal of time trying to do it once and declare victory. The biggest mistake many teams make is waiting too long to get their ideas prototyped and tested with those they are meant to serve.

In this chapter, we’ll look at why sharing in-progress work is so helpful, and how to go about making sense of the feedback you receive so it helps to strengthen ideas. Teams should be clear about how “finished” the work is that they are sharing, and present it in way that leads to actionable feedback. You’ll also learn how ...