The Unicorn Series: Moving Initiatives Forward with Development Teams Post 3: Intentional design (+ Consistent follow-through) = Success!

Introduction

There is no magic to why development teams are so productive and positive.^[1] In this post we dive into the details of the development team process, a process that is designed to be successful. We believe that with careful attention to how the process begins right through to the celebration of the final project, taking the development team approach guarantees success: we do good work together and team members appreciate the collaborative experience. Transparency, a clear goal, manageable time commitments,^[2] and a process that supports the development of a product that has value for our health science programs is something that we can celebrate. 🥳

Key Components for a Development Team

We have successfully worked with dozens of development teams using a similar process on all teams. The process, we believe, is generalizable and replicable.

Key features of development teams:

• Team facilitators/initiators (rather than a chair)
• We have clear team roles that promote being equal contributors on these horizontal (rather than hierarchical) teams
• Transparency:
  • Record all our meetings^[3]
  • Start with a shared blank Google doc so everyone is on the same page from the start–even if it is a blank page 😉
  • To ensure that all team members have equal opportunities to contribute to the project,^[4] we use Google docs, which are easily accessed by team members
  • Email meeting summaries within a week of our time together
• Send reminders that highlight the work we will be doing in the upcoming meeting
• Although not all the work related to the project is done in meetings, all meetings are working meetings^[5]
• All team members contribute in meaningful and relevant ways
• Use streamlined and standardized processes–and emojis–for keeping multiple teams functioning and productive at the same time^[6]
• Ensure projects continue to move forward and remain on target with original completion dates by making it clear that “no news” from team members is considered “good news”^[7]
• Use an agenda similar to the agenda suggested by the Conscious Leadership Group

Guiding Principles for a Development Team^[8]

1. Have a clear purpose and set of deliverables
2. Have an agenda at every meeting with clear deliverables  
3. Identify a structure to ensure processes move forward
4. Work with programs to ensure that the members recommended for the team have expertise in the area being developed
5. Inclusive representation from all programs (involved)
6. Create an atmosphere that ensures members feel they belong 
7. Create an atmosphere that ensures members feel safe to speak up
8. Recommend synchronous (meetings) and asynchronous (homework) times - Scheduling specific times on calendars for asynchronous time (ex: meeting asynchronously for 1 hour, and synchronously 1 hour: or 2 hours working asynchronously in a live document)
9. Use an iterative process→ meet as a team, synthesis of meeting discussions done by a designated ‘work’ person, work is reviewed by members individually, meet as a team to approve/edit work, (repeat)...
10. Provide brief summaries that are easy for team members to access
11. Provide documents that are easily shared with program colleagues
12. Scope individual and team work appropriately
13. Be cognisant of time commitment of team members
14. Have a designated team member who’s scope of practice and role on the team is to moderate discussions, follow-up, and to keep the project moving forward

The Process

Supporting development teams is a carefully designed process. In this section, we show the step-by-step process that we have taken–including the behind the scenes activities. There is some magic involved–but no fantasy. This type of team work is:

1. Grounded in having dedicated focus, detailed and transparent work, clear objectives, and clear roles
2. Motivated by seeing the work progress, scoping the project accurately, and having specific tight timelines. 

In our experience, development teams that meet anywhere from two to six hours get to know colleagues from “other” programs and become reliant on one another by building a product that everyone sees benefit in. Synchronous virtual team meetings anchor the process with work being done in between meetings by designated team members–the behind the scenes work that is imperative for keeping the project moving.

Once the topic is selected and team members are identified, the selected representatives meet for approximately six hours over three months (and sometimes more when agreed upon by team members).^[9] For example, the synchronous meetings for common topic modules^[10] have agenda items that focus on identifying learning objectives/outcomes, agreeing on resources, suggesting and reviewing learning activities, discussing potential assessments, reviewing administration protocols, and recommending potential instructors who may be interested in incorporating the module(s) in their course(s).

Behind the scenes and between meetings, “USask Health Sciences” meets daily to support this work so that team members receive well-structured tables^[11] reflecting the conversations from the meetings, summary emails, and meeting reminders. Table 2 outlines the iterative process we have used for creating the common topic modules development so far.^[12]

Table 1: Development Process for Common Topic Modules

Summary

As indicated in the introduction, there is no magic as to why development teams are so productive and positive–and not as rare as unicorns! 🦄 The development team approach is intentionally designed to be salutogenically successful. By capitalizing on the energy of urgency–and interest–created by tight timelines,^[14] scoping clearly defined projects appropriately, and by taking an iterative approach to the work, the development teams we have worked with^[15] are examples of what high functioning teams that accomplish–in surprisingly short time frames–which can sometimes take much longer using other approaches. Additionally, and perhaps even more importantly, inter-professional/disciplinary development team projects bring colleagues together for a shared goal.🥳

Learn more

• For more information on the development team approach, please contact sheryl.mills@usask.ca.
• Post 1 in the Unicorn Series: The What, Why, and When of Development Teams
• Post 2 in the Unicorn Series: Stepping forward together on the stones of collaboration and teamwork
• All posts in the Collaborative Practices Blog: Going further together

^[1] Post 1 in the Unicorn Series provides the what, why, and how of development teams. Post 2 in the series provides a specific example of a project that used a development team approach.

^[2] That we stick to!

^[3] Recordings have been used differently according to the project. In some cases, the transcripts are added to a document to refer back to and in others it is used to synthesize the ideas and provide summaries.

^[4] Level of contribution is dependent on availability and level of importance placed on the project by the team member–or their program. We have had very few team members “disappear” or not be able to make team meetings which are set up well in advance.

^[5] What kind of meeting might one participate in that isn’t a working meeting? Apparently, quite a few (from what we have heard from development team members) hence the reason the “working” part is a unique feature. 😏 aka “Unicorn”

^[6] We use emojis in the subject line of emails as visual organizers and in shared documents titles so that topics are easily recognizable. Emojis are meaningful to the project and add a light-hearted and joyful start to shared documents and emails. Centrally, we rely on them to help distinguish among projects and teams! 😃

^[7] By taking this approach, if a team member is unable to comment or is in agreement with what has been developed, we can still keep things moving.

^[8] These guiding principles were identified by the Professionalism (Level 1) and Ethics (Level 1) Development Team members.

^[9] The duration of the project is dependent on the scope of the goals, but keeping the goals tightly focused and specific means that the duration expected to carry out the project doesn’t last longer than interest, enthusiasm, and memory. 😏

^[10] Common topic modules are content areas that are potentially important for–and common to–all health science programs at our university. These modules can be incorporated into classes by instructors. The modules are facilitated centrally, thus freeing up instructor time within a course to focus on other areas of responsibility. The modules developed so far are scoped at 10 hours of instructional time. You can explore more on common topic modules at this Timeline.

^[11] All meetings are recorded so no ideas are lost and are reflected in the work or kept for future higher level projects.

The tables and summaries are available to all team members through shared documents to review for the next meeting and ultimately sign off on.

^[12] So far we have developed four common topics modules (Communications, EDI, Ethics, and Professionalism) and a web page of resources for Indigenous health, wellness, and reconciliation. For developing smaller IPE projects, the process is similar although of shorter duration.

^[13] We use the design squiggle as described in Post 1 of The Unicorn Series.🦄

^[14] Timelines are short enough that the project doesn’t lose momentum–or that we forget what we were doing!

^[15] And thus have been members of…everyone at the team meeting is an active participant.