What are the Areas to be Aware of When Working with a Diverse Collaboration?

Collaborating can be both exhausting and rewarding, whether your partners are on- or off-campus, no matter how many collaborators are involved. Dive into the process knowing that the way of a more progressive world is highly collaborative. The old standard of competing in a global economy has been eclipsed by collaborating for mutual benefit.

While building your rationale and enhancing your concept, contact colleagues, both nationally and internationally, who have developed models or tools with components somewhat similar to your plan. In other words, enter into the project knowing that there is no need to reinvent certain wheels.

Create a Planning Committee

An ideal structure is to create a planning committee with at least one representative of each collaborating entity. Divide this committee into subcommittees or groups based on the task areas of your project. As the project director, you are the central cohesive force managing each of these task groups, primarily responsible for linking the projects of all of the subcommittees together and ensuring that their focus and development contribute to the overall theme and are tied into the mission and objectives of the overall project. Dividing into subcommittees is a strategy that can minimize the scale of the project, which reduces stress and anxiety and allows for a smoother collaboration.

Once all of the collaborators are on board and a communication system is in place, the workflow can go smoothly. The tasks that initially seem daunting and unachievable become easy and doable. It is difficult to coordinate with multiple partners so it is important for the project director to delegate and keep all partners in communication with each other. The work becomes very demanding when any one collaborator lapses in their duties and tasks are neglected.

Divide Roles and Responsibilities

The key is to identify who is doing what immediately, prior to grant writing. You must have their complete buy-in and ensure they are amenable to sharing the workload--ideally, before the grant is written; at the very least, when the grant writing is completed. Everyone involved needs to understand that they have a role to play and need to make an effort to create campus and community awareness about the project.

Some recommend that you should work with as many collaborative groups as possible, even if it seems that more partners make it difficult to organize. The philosophy is quite the opposite. Ultimately, the more input, prospectives, and collaboration you have make the project more thorough and meaningful.

Plan for Conflict Resolution

Personal and professional conflicts among collaborators can arise in spite of good planning, thorough selection, and communication. This is a great opportunity to incorporate conflict resolution knowledge and techniques. Ultimately, it is the project director’s responsibility to take care of these situations and make decisions that are for the good of the project.

Despite your best efforts, the replacement of incompatible collaborators/committee members is an option that you have to consider. Remember why you are an international educator; let that strengthen and sustain you when the project monster you have created begins to roar.