Building a collaborative culture: best practices for project managers

Over the past 6 years, I have worked on 30+ innovative projects, with companies ranging from multi-national, old world businesses, to single-founder startups on the bleeding edge of technology. There are four areas (that I refer to as the critical success factors of projects) that they all have in common: a strong discovery, a clear and codified project setup, clear communication channels and strategic alignment and excellent project personnel. Studies show that teams with high levels of collaboration are five times more likely to achieve their project goals and yet, it’s in this area that project leaders struggle the most: poor communication, siloed work, misalignment in outcomes and confusing or unclear workflows.

This article explores the importance of a collaborative culture with additional insights and best practices for project managers trying to build one within their organisation. This piece will highlight the key takeaways from my experiences and how I have grown to cultivate that culture wherever I have worked.

Understanding the importance of collaboration

There are a few common challenges when creating a collaborative environment and my experience has shown me that misalignment is often the root cause. This may be explicit or implicit but it leads to a lack of trust, willingness to “share” and a general obfuscation of shared objectives.

In larger organisations, project leaders and executives are often territorial with their budget and information. The competition with organisations can sometimes be as fierce as competition between them. Interestingly, major competitors in many large industries have moved towards a cooperation and competition model, also known as a “coopertition” model, where they cooperate to ensure the health of the industry, and then compete within that safe environment. The idea is to grow the pie together and compete over bigger slices. If a level of collaboration can exist between competing firms by sharing knowledge and resources, there is no reason why teams and departments within a firm can’t do the same.

According to recent reports, 37% of projects fail due to a lack of clear objectives. Even worse, objectives can be clear but misaligned with the company strategy therefore creating competing objectives within the organisation. A separate study saw that 86% of employees and executives cited lack of communication and collaboration as the top reason for workplace failure.  

How I have built collaboration

In my experience, there are 4 steps to fostering effective collaboration within a team and it’s nested in a collaborative environment across the organisation.

Communication: the baseline

Communication is the foundation of collaborative practices. Ensuring that open communication is rewarded and, more importantly, never punished, is crucial. That might sound obvious but the response to delivering bad news has to trump the response to not delivering the news at all. Project leaders should be encouraged to discuss challenges and potential problems before they materialise. Furthermore, these conversations should be facilitated so the onus is not on the project leader. Regular check-ins that extend beyond a status update are important. Concern about the team’s morale, openness to new ideas, and collaboration on how to approach challenging situations should all be broached by the most senior person involved. This will encourage complete openness and should filter down through the company so that communication and openness is shared across the board.

Fostering transparency: beyond communication

Transparency can be challenging when the hierarchical structure of the organisation is very rigid which can create obstruction to the larger picture. When everyone is bought into the big-picture objectives, transparency becomes a lot easier. It also eradicates information silos, which is crucial for collaboration. Silos only add to complexity and naturally create gaps in understanding and ultimately outcomes.  

Transparency has to come from the top-down. Executives sharing the “Why” for activities and initiatives encourages questions and that vulnerability is reciprocated and trickles down. This shouldn’t just be in an annual letter to all employees from the CEO either. There should be channels where regular updates are given and questions are actively sought. In a data-driven organisation, the data used to make decisions should be openly available and all levels of the organisation should be able to access and understand it. These practices grow trust between those making decisions and those most affected by them in a way that the decision-making process itself becomes transparent.

It’s a lot easier to collaborate when you know why you are doing what you’re doing, who else is contributing to that goal and how they are getting to their decisions. With increased transparency, you see a reduction in project delays and a stark increase in team engagement. But most importantly, you see a cross-pollination of ideas both in problem-finding and solutionising which is crucial in building a culture of innovation.

Strategic alignment — number three of four

Ensuring that all project work, as well as all project objectives, align with the organisation’s strategic objectives is not only beneficial to the project and the organisation in the short term, but is the beginning of growing a culture of collaboration. At this point, the only functional option is to collaborate. Teams truly become teams (rather than a collection of people who work on the same project) and this extends beyond into the organisation. The evolution to strategic alignment necessitates collaboration insomuch as companies can no longer operate without it.

All departments should be involved in the shaping and implementing of the company strategy, either directly or indirectly and the work executed under their independent purview should all roll up to do the same. The strategy should be a living document so regular refreshers and workshops, given market feedback and other inputs should help everyone remain engaged and collaborating towards the same end.

Conclusion

Fostering collaboration, beyond mere cooperation, is essential for project success. By prioritising communication and transparency, under the banner of strategic alignment, project leaders can overcome the common challenges outlined above to build high-performing teams and a culture of innovation within the broader organisation.

Getting started with this is simple but difficult. The steps are few but require commitment and universal buy-in from the executives in the organisation. A top-down implementation of a transparent decision-making process and a communication audit to understand what, how and how frequently communication should take place would be a great start. My experience has taught me that this all works best when everyone understands the company-wide objectives and feels that they are part, rather than spectators, of the process.