https://www.figma.com/collaboration-report/
Something feels off. Everyone leaves the meeting, and dives back into their work and digital “collaboration” tools, feeling as if something tangible has been lost.
Why does working together feel so hard? Even with clear goals, expertly articulated roadmaps—even collaborative digital spaces where we can “be together”—it often feels like we’re missing each other. What’s wrong with this dynamic? And how can we fix it?
When we say we are “collaborating,” what we actually mean is we’re performing a variety of synchronous and asynchronous acts that are in tension and harmony with each other. We wanted to better understand what it takes for people and teams to collaborate well—to identify gaps and empower people to improve their experience—so we did some research.
50+ designers, PMs, engineers, researchers, and writers told us something they did with another member of their team, every day for 5 days.
People consider a lot of different activities to be forms of “collaboration.” Including, but not limited to, work that’s carefully divided, giving everybody a role to play—for example, contributing asynchronously to a massive user journey diagram in a digital whiteboard tool. It can also be very freeform—for example, coordinating in real time to troubleshoot or file a bug via Slack or Zoom. It can be very high-stakes—for example, meticulously planning a kick-off workshop for an important company priority. It can also be super mundane, like reconciling a comment in a document or design file.
In order for work to be collaborative, the process or outcomes need to be shared. But different roles may think about their collaborative responsibilities in totally different ways, and the potential for failure is high. Without a more precise way to talk about the stuff that makes it work, “collaboration” will go the way of many corporate buzzwords—something we say we do without meaningful consideration for the rituals and behaviors that make it successful.
Different roles may think about their collaborative responsibilities in totally different ways, and the potential for failure is high.