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The Agile Software Development Series
Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders
“ Collaboration Explained is a deeply pragmatic book that helps agile practitioners understand and manage complex organizational and team dynamics. As an agile coach, I’ve found the combination of straightforward advice and colorful anecdotes to be invaluable in guiding and focusing interactions with my teams. Jean’s wealth of experience is conveyed in a carefully struck balance of reference guides and prose, facilitating just-in-time learning in the agile spirit. All in all, a superb resource for building stronger teams that’s fit for agile veterans and neophytes alike.” ―Arlen Bankston, Lean Agile Practice Manager, CC Pace “If Agile is the new ‘what,’ then surely Collaboration is the new ‘how.’ There are many things I really like about Jean’s new book. Right at the top of the list is that I don’t have to make lists of ideas for collaboration and facilitation anymore. Jean has it all. Not only does she have those great ideas for meetings, retrospectives, and team decision-making that I need to remember, but the startling new and thought-provoking ideas are there too. And the stories, the stories, the stories! The best way to transfer wisdom. Thanks, Jean!” ―Linda Rising, Independent Consultant The Hands-On Guide to Effective Collaboration in Agile Projects To succeed, an agile project demands outstanding collaboration among all its stakeholders. But great collaboration doesn’t happen by itself; it must be carefully planned and facilitated throughout the entire project lifecycle. Collaboration Explained is the first book to bring together proven, start-to-finish techniques for ensuring effective collaboration in any agile software project. Since the early days of the agile movement, Jean Tabaka has been studying and promoting collaboration in agile environments. Drawing on her unsurpassed experience, she offers clear guidelines and easy-to-use collaboration templates for every significant project from iteration and release planning, through project chartering, all the way through post-project retrospectives. Tabaka’s hands-on techniques are applicable to every leading agile methodology, from Extreme Programming and Scrum to Crystal Clear. Above all, they are grounded in a powerful understanding of the technical, business, and human challenges you face as a project manager or development team member. · Build collaborative software development cultures, leaders, and teams · Prepare yourself to collaborate―and prepare your team · Define clear roles for each participant in promoting collaboration · Set your collaborative agenda · Master tools for organizing collaboration more efficiently · Run effective collaborative meetings―including brainstorming sessions · Promote better small-group and pair-programming collaboration · Get better information, and use it to make better decisions · Use non-abusive conflict to drive positive outcomes · Collaborate to estimate projects and schedules more accurately · Strengthen collaboration across distributed, virtual teams · Extend collaboration from individual projects to the entire development organization
456 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2006
39 people are currently reading
624 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 19, 2022
A classic treatise on facilitation that starts to show its age.
Collaboration Explained is an all encompassing book on the skills needed to facilitate decision making in large and small groups. It is written with the servant leader in mind, as there are many cues on how to stay neutral and, above all, trust people's abilities to make decisions after having thorough discussions. Despite this, those who don't follow Agile practices should still find value in reading this book as there are many tips that are the basics for having productive meeting irrespective of your management process.
The books cover the basics, such as making sure that every meeting has a purpose and an agenda that guides to conversation to achieve it. An then it goes into explaining different techniques for eliciting ideas, categorizing, prioritizing and then making decisions. Along the way some advice is given, mainly about communicating with fellow participants on a constant basis to ensure there are no surprises when the meeting occurs. There is also some advice on how to manage unexpected events and dealing with conflict among participants.
The last 3 chapters of the book offer some recipes for facilitating typical Scrum, XP and Project Management meetings. As such, the agendas are very prescriptive but they are offered as examples to illustrate what is explained in the earlier chapters of the book. It was maybe how the meetings are presented here where I felt the content shows its age; such as suggesting that a team updates a burn down chart after the stand-up or that the Scrum Master leads the discussion during the review. Nowadays I get the feeling that the SM should be fostering self-organization, and ownership of such events where possible, as opposed to being the one who leads them all the time. But again, the author does suggest that her agendas are prescriptive and should be taken with a grain of salt.
I did find the book a little bit hard to read, no illustrations or diagrams. Mostly text and tabular information throughout. Therefore, this book is a bit of a dry read in that respect. But I figure that for those wanting to extract the golden nuggets from it, it should still be of some value. As a facilitator with few years of experience, I did appreciate this book helping me to get back to basics. And just for that it was very useful to me.
It is also interesting to see that some patterns now used in Liberating Structures were already mentioned in this book.
Collaboration Explained is an all encompassing book on the skills needed to facilitate decision making in large and small groups. It is written with the servant leader in mind, as there are many cues on how to stay neutral and, above all, trust people's abilities to make decisions after having thorough discussions. Despite this, those who don't follow Agile practices should still find value in reading this book as there are many tips that are the basics for having productive meeting irrespective of your management process.
The books cover the basics, such as making sure that every meeting has a purpose and an agenda that guides to conversation to achieve it. An then it goes into explaining different techniques for eliciting ideas, categorizing, prioritizing and then making decisions. Along the way some advice is given, mainly about communicating with fellow participants on a constant basis to ensure there are no surprises when the meeting occurs. There is also some advice on how to manage unexpected events and dealing with conflict among participants.
The last 3 chapters of the book offer some recipes for facilitating typical Scrum, XP and Project Management meetings. As such, the agendas are very prescriptive but they are offered as examples to illustrate what is explained in the earlier chapters of the book. It was maybe how the meetings are presented here where I felt the content shows its age; such as suggesting that a team updates a burn down chart after the stand-up or that the Scrum Master leads the discussion during the review. Nowadays I get the feeling that the SM should be fostering self-organization, and ownership of such events where possible, as opposed to being the one who leads them all the time. But again, the author does suggest that her agendas are prescriptive and should be taken with a grain of salt.
I did find the book a little bit hard to read, no illustrations or diagrams. Mostly text and tabular information throughout. Therefore, this book is a bit of a dry read in that respect. But I figure that for those wanting to extract the golden nuggets from it, it should still be of some value. As a facilitator with few years of experience, I did appreciate this book helping me to get back to basics. And just for that it was very useful to me.
It is also interesting to see that some patterns now used in Liberating Structures were already mentioned in this book.
February 15, 2014
Jean showed me how facilitation could truly enable your servant leadership for teams in organizations. I was able to observe this through her facilitation at Rally, her work with customers, and through co-teaching her class based on the book. The book is one of my go-to reference for planning facilitation events.
June 29, 2023
This might be my 6-7-8th book on facilitation.
I hesitated between 2 and 3 stars. The book is not bad, it was probably quite good at the time it came out, but it is less relevant today. If it is your first, second or third facilitation book you have better options available in 2022.
What makes it a decent book even today?
* it sticks to the topic
* it references good books of that time
* it speaks about different styles of leadership and what collaboration-oriented leadership is
* it provides a good introduction to teams, stances, states, lifecycles, performance, personalities
* it will guide you through what a good meeting should look like and what a facilitator's responsibility is.
I hesitated between 2 and 3 stars. The book is not bad, it was probably quite good at the time it came out, but it is less relevant today. If it is your first, second or third facilitation book you have better options available in 2022.
What makes it a decent book even today?
* it sticks to the topic
* it references good books of that time
* it speaks about different styles of leadership and what collaboration-oriented leadership is
* it provides a good introduction to teams, stances, states, lifecycles, performance, personalities
* it will guide you through what a good meeting should look like and what a facilitator's responsibility is.
August 22, 2014
This book has changed the way I conduct meetings. It teaches how to facilitate, structure and drive meetings to their purpose
January 19, 2022
I didn't like so much the way in which the book is written, sometimes it is not a so pleasing reading because of the wide usage of the to-do list metaphors.
Nonetheless it offers many glimpses on how to deal with teams and people to improve them, you just have to resist the temptation of putting the book down due to how it is written.
It helped me with its definition of collaboration, collaborative teams, and how to facilitate them.
Some of the hints the book gives about how to structure meetings and events are often overlooked, so it was interesting to have them highlighted.
Nonetheless it offers many glimpses on how to deal with teams and people to improve them, you just have to resist the temptation of putting the book down due to how it is written.
It helped me with its definition of collaboration, collaborative teams, and how to facilitate them.
Some of the hints the book gives about how to structure meetings and events are often overlooked, so it was interesting to have them highlighted.
June 25, 2017
Everything you need to know about facilitation. Incredibly thoughtful descriptions and tools for leading any kind of group.
August 23, 2019
A good reference book with great templates for facilitation. If you're new to facilitating meetings I'd read this book for sure, if you're experience, I still think you'll learn something from it.
March 6, 2023
Essential reading when it comes to facilitation and servant leadership. Has aged well despite the pandemic. Jean is amazing.
December 6, 2021
Good primer (or reminder) of team dynamics, scrum and collaboration style of negotiation. I especially enjoy the anecdotes with concrete examples. There’s also a handy resource in the back with detailed agendas for facilitating every kind of meeting imaginable. I’m giving it 4 stars because there is no getting better unless you practice; more concrete anecdotes would be helpful, in the next edition.
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June 5, 2008I use a number of techniques from this book very often when running a meeting. I havent really read the book page to page. But there is a lot here even as a quick reference and tips on how to get great meetings going.
February 5, 2013
Like her style. Jean weaves the Agile Philosophy, Coaching Techniques, Corporate Realities, Scrum Processes and Team Dynamics into a coherent whole using anecdotes and agenda templates. The result is a very readable and pragmatic presentation of software project collaboration.
September 3, 2013
Very interesting e creative ways to estimulate collaboration. It changed the way I conduct meetings and other group activities
December 6, 2016
Good book - offers detailed ideas on which you can build.
Rather manual than something for end to end read (although I've read it this way :-P)
Rather manual than something for end to end read (although I've read it this way :-P)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews