Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: A Look at "What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Collaboration?"

Introduction
The problem presented in this article is very straightforward: being able to successfully collaborate in technical communication is crucial, especially now, but there are definite dangers and "pitfalls" (Burnett et al. 454) to avoid. Unsurprisingly, the authors plan on presenting a heuristic to help the reader navigate collaborative projects effectively. In this chapter, they apply this heuristic to Cassandra and her work environment. Cassandra is the technical communicator for a five-person team working to produce recruitment brochures, tracking forms, and informational sheets for bilingual (English/Korean), female patients with breast cancer. The goal is to pair women who have been recently diagnosed with volunteer breast cancer survivors. The authors present the team as working effectively together, but Cassandra notes that communication strategies will have to change based on who she is interacting with and the potential conflict of being friends with her boss.

Literature Review

The authors cite studies that show that between 75 and 85% of writing in the workplace is collaborative. They also outline 3 assumptions about collaboration (457).

1. Collaboration is rhetorical = consider context

2. Collaboration is a process = dual responsibility

3. Collaboration is multimodal = must understand forms

They aver that collaboration is more than writing different sections of a group paper or simply using computer-mediated technology, but rather that it requires people who interact using different tools in different settings to achieved shared goals, either because the project has too much complexity (procedural, social, or intellectual) for one or because it requires multiple perspectives. Furthermore, the authors discuss cognition and learning, small group processes, and technology. In their section on cognition and learning, they briefly mention:

1. The importance of positive interdependence (we can reach individual goals only if the whole group is doing well)

www.learning-knowledge.com

2. And a way of explaining it: the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978)

http://talonsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/jonathan-toews-modern-education-and-zpd/

They also indicate that smaller groups may be better (Lowry et al. 2006) and that classroom and workplace groups vary in terms of construction, environment, and interaction (e.g. in a workplace the participants are likely to realize that they may collaborate again, not necessarily true in a classroom, semester vs. years, etc.). This leads to a discussion of: 

1. Social loafing (which happens more often in big groups or groups with undefined goals)

www.oecam.com

2. Groupthink (which can hinder productive conflict)

3forward.com

The authors go on to suggest that effective collaborations often require defined leadership. Leaders plan, organize, and motivate. They help group members "articulate and accomplish a shared vision" (464). They may also be facilitators, though this can also be a separate position. Facilitators are responsible for scheduling, organizing and sharing documents, and monitoring participation. They briefly indicate that classroom interaction often involves an unfortunate reduction in uncertainty and that leadership can be gendered (e.g. conventions of female or male leadership, women denied leadership roles). 

The last part of the literature review talks about the role of technology and how different technologies can be used depending on time (synchronous or asynchronous) and space (co-located or remote) (i.e. the cool table on 466). I appreciate that they mention that collaboration depends on how the technology is being used and that all technology does not necessarily enhance communication.     

Heuristic and case study

The heuristic the authors propose is a series of framing questions in Table 18.3 (468) relating the seven components of collaboration (see above) to cognition/learning, small group processes, and technology. For example, one of the questions dealing with setting and technology was "how do different settings affect your group's use of technology?" (469). They state that the answers to some of these questions may be partially or completely predetermined (e.g. goal of grant, job titles). They end by stressing the importance of compromise and the unique challenges faced in different groups.

Reflecting on the example and using the heuristic in this chapter should help you minimize problems and maximize rewards, but expect each collaboration to involve unique challenges, disagreements, and setbacks. Ultimately, your ability to turn moments of difficulty into sites of productivity could make the difference between success and failure (473).  

Questions

1. Lowry et al. found that groups of three had higher quality interactions than groups of six (but not significantly so). They also had greater openness, accuracy and richness. I wish this chapter would have cited some other studies as well, but Lowry's research made me think a lot about collaboration in the classroom. For example, how important is group size? Should students work in both smaller and bigger groups, or just smaller groups? Should the instructor construct the groups or should students have some ability to decide? Should students work with the same people over the course of the semester or should the groups be switched up? 

2. Should we ask each student to pick a role (leader, facilitator, etc) during group work? 

3. When describing the difference between productive and unproductive conflict, the authors stress considering attitudes, self-confidence, motivation, and sense of responsibility. Later, they indicate that students may instead look for a leader who instead minimizes uncertainty and reduce conflict. Can we teach productive conflict? Should we talk about it? How can we get students to consider all of these variables?   

4. There are A LOT of questions and variables in the authors' heuristic, and the discussion questions make me think they realize that students will not address them all and that some might be more important than others. How might this heuristic be reduced to be more manageable? Might that be an exercise for students as well as modifying it for their own workplace?

5. What do you think of using Second Life (discussion question 8) or the scenario between working at home or at work (discussion question 10)?

Connections 

This chapter easily connects to several others we've read this semester. For example, "What is the Future of Technical Communication?" and this one both discuss intellectual complexity (i.e. wicked problems) and how collaboration has increased in contemporary settings. The chapter also connects to Hart-Davidson's chapter because they both emphasize that work in technical communication can be interdisciplinary. For example, "What are the Work Patterns of Technical Communication?" talks about all the different genres of the papers Elena is working on in the coffee shop, and the people working on Cassandra's team all have very different skill sets and backgrounds. In this case, it is interesting to think about what role technical communicators play, especially in a group vs. alone. For example, there is a database administrator (and assistant) on this team, and I'm curious about the difference between recruitment materials and draft documents in the task list (456). These tasks seemed clear-cut to me at first, but now they still seems vague, and I would like to know more about Cassandra's specific role.

The end of the chapter connects to Spilka's "Communicating Across Organizational Boundaries: A Challenge for Workplace Professionals". Spilka indicates that external goals may have to come before internal goals in work with multiple organizations, and the current chapter describes Cassandra's willingness to compromise on the brochure's design for the good of the team. The authors state: "Collaborators should be receptive to compromise, putting the collective goal ahead of individual interests" (472).  It is also apparent that Cassandra (and others in the group) know about information design; perhaps they learned from "What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Information Design?". For example, they were concerned with brochures and thus how to structure visual content and materials in order "to make an argument or tell a story, creating purpose-driven groups..." (Schriver 390). Furthermore, Wysocki's chapter connects to this one in the discussion of new media and networking. Wysocki mentions games such as World of Warcraft and how they allow for interaction even when players are in different spaces. Similarly, Burnett et al. talk about how collaborators could communicate in remote locations, both synchronously and asynchronously.