Collaboration

Collaboration is the basis for all human work and it is built from culture. Culture in general is something that is organic and develops on its own. It can be difficult to document or make explicit. Depending on the specific social dynamics of the team, of internal collaborators, and of external contributors, culture can change quite a fair amount. Many of these dynamics might happen through channels like in-person activities, issue discussions, or on online communication platforms. However, a healthy culture requires some self-awareness, self-reflection, and ultimately some self-regulation to remain healthy. Through the below principles, we hope to nurture a healthy culture of collaboration.

Recognize and account for the human aspect of work

Humans are biological beings with limitations to their capacities with physical, emotional, and mental needs. Part of designing a healthy work culture is by recognizing and accounting for these limits and needs. We aim to design a work culture where we find and work on things that we enjoy doing, where we actively assess cognitive load and capacity when planning and designing products, and where we incorporate formal and informal social activities and support structures to help build relationships and trust.

Expect and anticipate openness and transparency

A core value of the Seedcase Project is openness and transparency. This includes nearly all aspects of our work, including cross-collaborator communication. We aim to recognize, and anticipate, that we are working and communicating openly and that anyone could potentially see and read what we write. We also recognize that some things are private and should be kept private, which will be decided on a per-situation basis.

Work iteratively, incrementally, and prioritize extensively

Humans have limited cognitive capacity, and there is only so much time in a given day. There will always be more tasks than we can reasonably or realistically complete. So to ensure we remain flexible, adaptable, and humane, we aim to prioritize our tasks extensively, and work in iterative and incremental ways.

Incorporate improvement feedback loops

Adaptability and flexibility are critical to not only surviving but growing. However, they require information to know what needs improvement. We aim to have regular sources of feedback and reflection into what we produce and how we collaborate. That way, we can learn and grow from our mistakes and successes. This includes regularly and actively seeking places to automate or simplify things and to improve documentation and collaboration.

Prioritize finishing tasks, not starting them

It can be tempting and easy to start new tasks. But starting a new task is the easy part. The hard part is finishing it. Collaboration also works best when we all have a solid understanding of what needs to be done, who is doing what, and what needs to be reviewed. That can be difficult if there are too many tasks in progress. So that we don’t build up work-in-progress items and not overextend our cognitive capacity, we aim to prioritize finishing tasks over starting them. As the Agile and Kanban saying goes, “stop starting, start finishing”.

Prioritize visible and documented work and communication

Communication and work that isn’t in some way documented and visible for collaborators to see is nearly impossible to learn from, engage with, and participate in. We aim to prioritize “making work visible”, as reasonably as possible, and in a way that makes it easier to be “visible”. This includes documenting decisions, discussions, and work in a way that is accessible and understandable to others. It also means prioritizing written communication over verbal communication, as written communication is more accessible and easier to engage with and come back to. Sharing knowledge and insights with collaborators by documenting it is also a way to make our work visible, so that we also aim to share knowledge and insights as much as possible.

Assume and expect asynchronous work and communication

We don’t always work in the same timezone, nor do we all have the same preferred work hours. To accommodate for this, we aim to work and communicate in as asynchronous a manner as possible and reasonable.