UIEtips: Attaining a Collaborative Shared Understanding

Sometimes, it’s easy to brand what we do as the “science of the obvious.” Here we are, doing all this research, and come up with something that is painfully obvious.

The latest of the obviously obvious findings we’ve come up with? That teams who don’t have a shared understanding of their design rarely succeed at producing a great product. See? It’s obvious.

Yet it surprises me that quite frequently the obvious is not what people do. Many teams that we’ve studied don’t pay attention to whether they have a shared understanding or not. They don’t create a process to ensure everyone is on the same page. Then they wonder why their results aren’t what they want.

In today’s UIEtips, I describe the two types of shared understanding we uncovered and how one of them is far more likely to end with a successful design. I’m betting this is an article that will create some interesting discussions amongst your team.

Read the article: Attaining a Collaborative Shared Understanding.

A collaborative shared understanding is a key component of successful Agile projects. Fortunately, on January 24, Anders Ramsay will be sharing his techniques for helping teams collaborate in his UIE Virtual Seminar, Designing with Agile. Bring your team and learn the best techniques.

Have you transitioned from a contractual approach to a collaborative approach to attaining shared understanding? We’d love to hear how it went (or is going). Leave us a note below.