COLLABORATION MODEL
The partners in the Shaping Patterns project have developed a model of collaboration, which can serve as a guideline for others who want to collaborate across professional sectors.
Why is a Model of Collaboration relevant?
The Shaping Patterns Model of Collaboration is based on experiences from practice. In most areas today, we are encouraged to look beyond our own competency and expertise and challenge the attitude “because that’s the way I’ve always done it”. Collaborations develop our practice, and we learn from other’s ways of working and perspectives on what we do.
Basically, collaboration is a partnership involving two people or more people. It can be someone you know or someone you don’t know. To collaborate is the act of doing or creating something together. It means to commit to the possibility of producing an outcome, greater than one you could get by yourself.
The Shaping Patterns Model of Collaboration takes its starting point in a practice involving different professionals and promoting interdisciplinary co-creation. However, we believe the model can be used in any collaborative process, also those involving children in school projects.
This short film takes you through 5 steps in a collaborative process, presented by children from Greece, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, and Denmark. If you are planning a new collaboration project, we hope the model can inspire you to keeping an eye on the ball and giving priority to critical reflections and mutual exchange of perspectives and skills.
THE FIVE STEPS
We are two pieces in a puzzle – you and me – a blue piece and a green piece. We look different – we have different shapes – we see things from different perspectives.
Let’s see the puzzle as our shared project. We have different skills, and we have different roles, but we know that we can only complete the puzzle if we collaborate. So, we must connect our differences and see them as equally important to the whole.
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The underlying principle of a collaborative process is to provide an atmosphere of being curious, asking questions and agreeing on the shared mindset: “we are in this together and what each of us brings in is crucial for reaching valuable experiences and outcomes”.
When we start our project, we share what we are good at and what we are interested in. We are curious on each other’s thoughts and ideas, and we ask each other open questions. Now, how do we imagine our shared project can take form? We find a common question that we would like to examine. This could for example be: How do we get our community to experience our surroundings in new ways? Or how do we provide spaces for rest in our rapid every day?
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When you start a new project you might have certain expectations, thoughts, and ideas – maybe you have a specific challenge, problem, or issue you would like to work with. Share your thoughts with your collaboration partner(s) and discuss how your different interests, skills and approaches can form a shared starting point. The project can start to take form when you have defined a shared question based on what you want to explore and how can you do this together?
Now we have a joint direction for our collaboration. Where do we go from here? How do we progress from idea to action? We agree on a plan for how our different skills and interests can supply each other. What is my role and what is yours? What materials and tools do we need, and how and where do we want our project to take place?
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Based upon the shared question, you plan a set of actions where you focus on how your collaboration promotes different perspectives on addressed issues. You break down tasks and clarify roles. You agree on who is responsible for what, what materials you should work with, how many actions you need, and maybe you want to involve someone outside your partnership.
In our collaboration it can sometimes be difficult to agree on where we are heading and what is important to include and focus on. Maybe we are missing a piece? It can be a good idea to have running stop-ups and discuss how it is going and asking reflecting questions: Are we doing, what we think we are doing? Is there anything that we need to do differently? What is our next step? Sometimes our stop-ups form new directions which only makes the project even more exiting.
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Reflecting on your own observations and experiences when your project is running, is essential for gaining new insights. The collaborative process is depending on the exchange of views on how you experience the project’s development. The running stop-ups give you the opportunity to bring new ideas in, tune into your partner(s)’s expectations and adjust your own. Maybe you even need to find a new shared direction for your project.
The project continues and we now collaborate on connecting the final pieces. It is an exciting process where we see how our differences interact and we discover new things together. When the project is over, we have not only learned new things about each other but also ourselves. In fact, we believe that it is in the interplay with others that we get wiser on who we are and what we can do together for the world of tomorrow.
Now the puzzle is completed … but it does not end her. Quickly the pieces come apart and a new puzzle can begin.
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Reaching the final step of a project is always an exiting stage: What have we achieved? Are we happy with our achievements and outcomes? Is there anything we should have done differently? What have we learned about our partnership and about ourselves and how can we use our new knowledge in the future?
