The Vital Role of Collaboration in Fostering Effective Teamwork

Collaboration is essentially the act of working together as part of a whole towards the completion of a common task and requires developing a relationship of mutual help and support with your fellow collaborators. It is more structured and coordinated than cooperation and, in my opinion, requires more commitment than participation or contribution. Specifically, in the design practice, while individuals will always assert their identities in the design process, collaboration is the linchpin of each project. Personally, during my studies in architecture school, I had the experience of working both individually and as part of a team and subsequently, I was already aware of the crucial role that collaboration plays in the creative field. It is not only the proper segregation of tasks to each individual that makes the whole more efficient but the ability to develop a common pool of ideas and the exchange of different views that can drive the project forward in times of creative block.

In order to understand the most valuable aspects/characteristics of collaboration is enough to consider the distinction between a group and a team. “With a group, the whole is often equal to or less than the sum of its parts; with a team, the whole is always greater. ” On one hand, a team is defined as “a group of willing and trained individuals”, who are united and structured to work together to achieve a common goal while sharing authority and the responsibility for self-management, being highly interdependent and at the same time empowered to implement consensus decisions. On the other hand, it is argued that groups differ in that each member is seen as an independent individual, which has to report back to an external leader, meaning that very little collaboration can take place, something that can affect greatly the clarity and cohesion of the final outcome. Having explained the difference between team and group dynamics, in my opinion, the ability to self-organise inside a team is one of the most important reasons that make the team stronger than the group.

At the same time, the type/model of team-organisation is a significant factor, if not the deciding one, for the success of the project. As T. Austin (2019) has introduced during core time, three indicative models of team-organisation can be the hierarchical, the democratic and the co-creative and each one of them has advantages and disadvantages. The hierarchical model is a top-down structure, where the power is in the hands of the few (at the top) who take all the major decisions and there are different levels of power, management and authority beneath them. It is commonly used in large organizations, such as governments and most corporations and is often represented as a pyramid. Even though there are many challenges with this model, such as conflicts due to the centralization of power, lack of direct communication and collaboration, low levels of engagement and creativity, this kind of model is still being used in the creative field in large scale offices but it is fairly outdated and is shifting towards flatter types of organization.

Furthermore, a democratic model is a flater and fairer organisational system that relies on co-leadership, equal chances for all the members to express their opinion and take part in the process of decision making. This structure seems to enhance each member’s creativity, motivation, dedication and friendliness and helps in achieving a common understanding of the project’s challenges. In some cases though (like in the Camden Alive project in my case) it gets hard to reach a decision in a democratic decision-making process, because of the equality of members’ opinions, and subsequently, the efficiency of the team decreases.

Finally, the model of co-creation has its origin in co-production where user participation was introduced in the production process and influnced the final outcome. In general, “co-creation enables idea generation through shared knowledge and experiences” and it is a more effective and efficient model because it ensures a platform for many to be heard and room for diversity and difference. A considerable disadvantage of co-creation is that it cannot be applied effectively in larger groups, because it requires frequent meetings and role-sharing between the creatives/stakeholders.

I would argue that co-creation should be examined in different terms for multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams because in each case the purpose and objective of the collaboration is different. At this point, it is important to note that my previous experience in collaboration was limited in working in teams within my discipline and my cultural background. This does not mean it was easier in terms of interpersonal skills, such as conflict management or reliability, but at least all the team members had a common ground and a given amount of knowledge when communicating and when discussing a project. During MANE I had the opportunity to collaborate with people from different disciplines (multidisciplinary collaboration), people and communities outside of our course (transdisciplinary collaboration) and last but not least people with completely different cultural backgrounds.