Collaboration
Last updated on 2023-08-21 | Edit this page
Estimated time: 60 minutes
Overview
Questions
- Why is effective collaboration important for lesson development?
- When, if ever, is it best to establish structured project governance?
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants should be able to…
- recommend tools and practices lesson developers can adopt to aid collaboration.
- draw on their own experience to advise lesson developers on how to collaborate effectively.
Reading List
- Homework: Read CLDT episode: Example Data and Narrative and comment on https://github.com/carpentries/lesson-development-training/issues/210 to share your thoughts on whether this content should appear earlier in the curriculum.
- CLDT episode: Collaborating with Your Team
- CLDT episode: Collaborating with Newcomers
- Greg Wilson’s Blogpost on Martha’s Rules
Discussion Questions
- How have you made decisions with collaborators in the past?
- Did you use any formal decision-making framework(s)?
- What might be the advantages and drawbacks of using a formal decision-making framework?
- In your experience, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of collaborating on a project (lesson development or something else), as opposed to working alone?
- What strategies have you used to work successfully with collaborators in the past? Do those strategies change with the size of the group?
Homework/Reading for Next Week
- Read CLDT episode: The Carpentries Workbench and follow the steps in the episode, creating and configuring a new lesson repository, while you read through the content.
- Note down any problems you encounter along the way, no matter whether they were minor (i.e. slowed you down or confused you temporarily, but did not stop you from progressing) or major (i.e. you had to give up or ask for help).
Key Points
- Good collaboration allow you to create better lessons, faster, and to have more fun while you are doing it.
- Structured decision-making, especially among close colleagues and/or friends, can feel unnecessarily formal early in a project.
- On the other hand, it is easier to establish decision-making processes early and before any substantial disagreements have occured.