LERNLUST #11 // How can we work well together?

Good collaboration – we just do it, don't we? Or maybe we don't just do it?

We all want to work well and successfully together – whether it's a one-off task to be completed together with a colleague, tasks in a Scrum or line team, or our customer or internal projects.
The framework conditions for this have changed. In the past, we often sat in the same place to do this, sometimes even in specially rented open-plan offices. But with other forms of work organization - for example in the context of agile software development - distributed collaboration has become more and more normal. The pandemic has added the challenge of virtuality to this.

And now we are slowly returning to the offices and that means that distributed and hybrid working may also pose a challenge.

At tts, we have been dealing with many of these challenges for a long time. In this episode, I talk to my colleague Patricia Kleinle about the 'Big Six of successful virtual distributed collaboration'.
The role of a CLEAR STRUCTURE, how the development of a good sense of BELONGING and COMMUNITY contributes to this, what the WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE has to do with it, what role a clear GOAL ORIENTATION plays, why a LEARNING-FRIENDLY CULTURE is essential and how important METHOD VARIETY is here , that's what the eleventh episode of our LERNLUST podcast is about.

Shownotes

Host:
Claudia Schütze, Senior Learning Consultant & Trainerin // LinkedIn

Guest:
Patricia Kleinle, Senior Consultant & Scrum Master // LinkedIn

6 building blocks for successful collaboration – as a compass in digitally distributed setups (de)
Tip: “Collaboration Superpowers” (de)
Overview of the 6 building blocks (de)

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[Claudia Schütze]
Lernlust, the podcast for everything related to corporate learning.

[Susanne Dube]
We are Claudia Schütze and Susanne Dube and we are learning consultants at tts and we are the hosts of this podcast.

[Claudia Schütze]
And here we will exchange ideas about topics related to our work, in other words, everything that affects learning in organizations today and in the future.

[Susanne Dube]
And from time to time we will invite internal or external experts to join us. And we would be delighted if you would join us.

[Claudia Schütze]
Working well and successfully together is not easy and it is not made easier by the fact that the contexts are becoming much more complex and perhaps more complicated. In the past, we may have even sat in the same office with the colleagues with whom we worked together in the specialist team. Today, there may be situations in which one colleague is sitting in the office in Berlin, the next colleague in Switzerland and the third colleague perhaps even in North America.

All of this must be taken into account if we want to make collaboration successful or perhaps even more successful. And we at tts have been doing this for a very, very long time, at least in the context of our project work, because projects have always been international and projects have always been distributed. This means that we have been able to gain a great deal of experience over the years of practicing this type of collaboration.

And colleagues at TMC have taken a closer look at these experiences. Patricia Kleinle is one of them and I will talk to her today about what makes collaboration, distributed collaboration, virtual, analog or hybrid collaboration successful. Hello and welcome to a new episode of our state podcast.

I am very happy to welcome a very esteemed colleague of mine to our virtual coffee kitchen sofa today, namely Patricia Kleinle. Patricia, it's great to have you here. Welcome.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Hello dear Claudia, thank you very much for the invitation.

[Claudia Schütze]
So that our listeners also get a very small idea of who you are, besides my colleague, I would like to take this opportunity to briefly introduce you again, since you have never been a guest with us before. She is a consultant at tts for agile digital transformations and is also a Scrum Master for our own software development teams. And in these two roles, and also, Patricia, as you explained in advance, in your entire professional life before that, your focus was always on creating contexts in which collaboration and, in particular, decentralized collaboration can succeed well.
And your focus was always on enabling this and creating the right conditions, for example, using agile frameworks, which then enable efficient and successful collaboration between all parties involved. And Patricia, it sounds like you have built up a wealth of experience, and I am very happy that you are sharing it with us today. And you have brought a topic that we want to talk about today: building blocks for good collaboration.
And to be honest, when I hear that, I think to myself, well, we've probably all been working together all our lives, and maybe more or less well. And now I wonder if good cooperation just happens by itself or if it takes something, Patricia? What do you think?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, it's nice when good cooperation just happens, as you put it so nicely. But most of the time, if you take a closer look, there are some criteria that are relatively well met. So, it would be really nice if it always just worked like that, but in fact we make it easier for ourselves if we think about what is actually behind it and what makes for good cooperation.

[Claudia Schütze]
Okay, that sounds very promising and I think you have a lot to share with us on the subject. Patricia, when I hear the word collaboration, I naturally have a lot of images in mind, in my mind's eye. And maybe we should give our listeners another chance to guess what we mean when we talk about collaboration.

[Claudia Schütze]
So, I can imagine that there are a wide range of contexts. Would you mind going through the ones you took into account again? Sure, yes.

[Patricia Kleinle]
I mean, collaboration starts with just the two of us, Claudia, doing a podcast, and that's good. Of course, collaboration also exists in line teams, which we also have at tts. In the area in which I work, there are, of course, project teams, relatively constant and also changing ones.

There are Scrum teams, i.e. agile teams. But we also have forms of cooperation that are relatively unique. For example, one-off training sessions, proof of concepts.

[Claudia Schütze]
One-off podcasts.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Who knows. And then, of course, there is the way we do it. There are, so to speak, analog forms of collaboration, where we are all in the same place at the same time and work together.

There are virtual or digitally distributed forms of collaboration, which is how we are set up right now. And what is increasingly emerging are hybrid forms of collaboration. Perhaps we could briefly define what we mean by this for our listeners.

[Claudia Schütze]
I'd be happy to. Yes, Patrizia, I think that's good because people also understand different things by hybrid. What do we mean by it?
What do you mean by it?

[Patricia Kleinle]
I understand hybrid to mean two types of collaboration. On the one hand, for example, when we hold an event or training or workshop and several people from that group are on site, in the same place at the same time. And other people join remotely, so to speak, from other locations.

But there is this time limit, so to speak, where everyone is present in one way or another. And the other topic, which I also understand to be hybrid collaboration, is when a group works together over a longer period of time and sometimes meets on site for face-to-face topics, but sometimes also works digitally in a distributed way. Because there are also many topics that need to be considered in the setup of my experiences.

[Claudia Schütze]
So it's quite complex. I've only just realized that. But I also know that you have a great deal of experience in all the facets that you have just touched on.

And I think that was one of the reasons why you and your colleagues wanted to tell us that we can systematize it a bit. Things that we believe can positively influence successful collaboration in all the different contexts that we have just mentioned. And that's why you, and I say you because I know that there were also colleagues from your division involved, have put together six so-called building blocks, the big six, for successful collaboration.

And Patrizia, I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you in a little more detail about this today and delve a little deeper. Gladly, I'm looking forward to it. Great, then let's get started.
So six, I've already touched on this, the big six. Let's go. Yes, great, let's do it.

[Claudia Schütze]
So, what are the big six? Maybe we should just name them first, so that our listeners have a rough idea of what you think the criteria are.
And then we can go into a bit more detail. What is number one, Patrizia? Number one is a clear structure.
Great, the second one, and I can just mention this now, is the sense of community and belonging, which you also identified as a very important criterion. And the third one is actually the willingness to change. Number four is goal orientation, result orientation.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Number five? Number five, very important, is also the learning-friendly culture.

[Claudia Schütze]
Yes, that's super important. And last but not least, the variety of methods.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly, in our experience the building blocks do not have a priority in this sense. But the order in which we have just mentioned them makes sense when you are thinking about it. Start with the clear structure first and then tackle the other building blocks in the order in which we are discussing them today.

[Claudia Schütze]
Okay, and that's exactly what we're going to do now, Patrizia.

[Claudia Schütze]
We'll start with the clear structure. What comes to mind when you think about what makes a collaboration successful?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, the most important thing for me is that we see the big picture with the clear structure. And, for example, not just think from meeting to meeting, but also take into account the time in between. If we are talking about a one-time event, as a collaboration, then it is important not only to consider this synchronous collaboration during a certain period of time, but there is always a before and after.
Mostly there is preparation, an invitation, instructions, a follow-up, etc. And just plan the big picture from the very beginning. Not just a workshop, but how does the whole thing fit into the overall context?

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely, it makes a lot of sense from my point of view. And I would add a little something: you spoke about the big picture and actually use this metaphor to go to the meta level and say how do we want to structure this collaboration in the first place? I think that's also a relatively important topic.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Absolutely, and you also have to take various framework conditions into account.

[Claudia Schütze]
Okay, which ones?

[Patricia Kleinle]
For example, how big is my group? How well do the individuals in the group already know each other? What is the level of maturity of digital collaboration, especially in remote or hybrid setups?
Which devices will work? What infrastructure do we have available to us? What is the level of knowledge of the methods?
I have to take these kinds of issues into account for good preparation. Do you have a few more details for us on this, Patrizia? Yes, for me it is really important when creating the structures to make sure that they provide orientation.

As you say, everyone has different backgrounds, some are more familiar with the topic, some may be more adept at using methods, some are more adept at using different tools. And it is important to take everyone with you. And I think it works very well, we always call it the shared spaces that we create, where we somehow bring everything together.

An entry point, that's not exactly what I should call it in German, is where you can really find all the information about the relevant collaboration. And where people also have the space for exchange, discussions, asking questions, searching for information. When everything comes together in one place, it really helps with orientation.

[Claudia Schütze]
And to talk about it very clearly, so that everyone has the same common understanding of this existing space, also seems to me to be a useful addition.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly. And transparency is also a keyword. It's all transparency when you have a shared space like this.
There is relatively little information asymmetry because everything is communicated via this space, which is accessible to everyone.

[Claudia Schütze]
Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. Patricia, you've already touched on a few things. Do you have any specific tips for our listeners?

[Patricia Kleinle]
I find this transparency to be relatively important, especially in hybrid setups. That when we meet on site from time to time, virtually from time to time, we then have all the information in one place and not on flipcharts in a specific room, but that we have it transparently accessible. Or just so that people who are virtually connected to an in-person event don't miss anything, I guess.

That they also have access to all the information. And for that, I really like to use online whiteboard tools, for example, where we can document in real time, for example during face-to-face events, so that the virtually connected participants can also participate. It's really very useful to digitize the visualization there so that you can continue working with it later.

[Claudia Schütze]
Yes, absolutely. And do you know what's going through my mind right now, given what you just mentioned? When we talk about whiteboard tools like this, some people might think, “Tell me something I don't know.”

We have been saying that since May 2020, but I think the example you gave, Patrizia, is a good illustration of the fact that the tool alone achieves nothing. Rather, it is the meaning that I give to this tool and how I use it that determines what I get out of it afterwards.

And that the tool itself is simply, yes, it's a tool, but I have to define the framework for how and in which context and by whom and in which time intervals, periods of time I want to use it in which way. And that seems to me to be another comment that I would like to make again.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, please. I think it also depends a lot on how you say, how I use the tool. And also in terms of aesthetics.
For example, we once set up a project room like this. It was a bit like that, the navigation looked a bit like a Netflix homepage, which was well received. I think so.

Or I think you also know that I once gave a presentation at one of our Friday for Learning events. I actually mapped out a room where we moved from room to room.

[Claudia Schütze]
And these are topics that are actually very well received by participants. I remember it very well. And I also know that I thought it was really great because it actually created an idea of spatiality.
And that it actually opened up a space for experiences. I thought what you did was really, really great.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, it's usually well received. And I just want to use it to give the participants real orientation.

[Claudia Schütze]
You have absolutely succeeded in the one example that I have in mind. And it is now clear to me that this is multiplied in your work contexts.

[Claudia Schütze]
Patricia, the second one was about creating a sense of belonging and community.
And you also formulated guiding principles for each building block that we didn't mention just now. But for the second one, I'll just do it again. You formulated the idea of paying attention to each other in order to foster a sense of community and achieve goals together.
Would you like to give us a few key points from your perspective?

Patricia Kleinle:
I'd be happy to. For me, the module means promoting a sense of belonging on the one hand and acquiring a sense of community on the other. On the subject of belonging and a sense of belonging.
It is important to feel part of a team, a project, and perhaps also the company, the organization, the purpose. This way, you can see your own contribution in the overall context. In my experience, knowing the big picture, the overall goal behind it, really helps to motivate and inspire a sense of achievement when working together to achieve a goal.

And on that note, I also have a specific tip for our listeners that has really proven very successful for us: we visualize the roadmap, i.e., the big picture, the goal, the milestones. For example, on a Miro board. Then, at every meeting, at every vote, for example at a weekly vote, at the beginning of a workshop, we always localize where we are right now on our entire journey.
And that really helps to see where we are right now, on which work package, who is on board right now. Sometimes you need different specialists for the various work packages and to localize again together, where are we together on our way to the common goal.

[Claudia Schütze]
I really like that, Patricia. You know from our preliminary discussions that I am probably the more visual of the two of us. And I really like the idea of working through and documenting a joint collaboration process in this way, visualizing and documenting the status. So I think I would always like to have that.

And by the way, I can also imagine that in our learning contexts, it would be very interesting to perhaps think again about the good old learning maps and perhaps also to visualize learning progress in a completely different way with them. That's a really nice inspiration, Patricia. Thank you very much for that.

I think I would like to think about that again in my learning and training context. Do that. I'm very excited to hear you report on it.
I will report on it. But now let's get back to your focus. Patricia, what else is important to you?

[Patricia Kleinle]
The sense of community. It's really important to take time to create a basis of trust in a form of cooperation. It really pays off.
In the beginning, you always try to be as efficient as possible, especially in the consulting field, of course. But it really pays off.
The collaboration is much more efficient and effective when you understand each other well and also know each other well. And that's why I really recommend that you actually invest a little time at the beginning and get to know each other.

[Claudia Schütze]
What exactly do you do to foster this sense of belonging and community?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Especially when you're working in a new topic, in a new constellation, where not everyone knows each other yet, then it's often important to have a kind of kick-off event, as we often call it, where you invest in getting to know each other. For example, can you share a little bit of something private with targeted questions, triggers, that people reveal something about themselves? I always try to keep it relatively open so that no one feels pressured to share something, for example.
Two facts about me and maybe, if we are in a learning context, what was your last excellent learning experience or something like that? Or what are the pain points in the current process that we might optimize in the meeting, what happens afterwards? I try to connect it so that it's not completely detached, that it's not just about getting to know each other informally, but that it's always seen a bit in the context of the whole.
But that you already have some reference points where you can perhaps ask questions later.

[Claudia Schütze]
I think that's a good point and I could now contribute an experience from our learning contexts. Do you know the famous rounds of introductions in every training or learning session? We have actually started to do the same in virtual training sessions by asking people to share three rather personal facts about themselves with the others.
I have to admit that this is met with a bit of amazement and a bit of silence at first, but we also explain why we do it. The idea is not just to come out and reveal something about yourself, but to give us the opportunity to discover similarities and points of contact for what happens together later, both in the jointly organized learning phases and in those learning phases that we offer, for example, in such question and answer sessions, coffee kitchens, etc.
, we are already a bit familiar, we know that there are similarities and, to be honest, we have had really good experiences with it, even in contexts where people said before that you can't do that. Patricia, I'm sure you have another tip for us.

[Patricia Kleinle]
I do have one other tip, and that is the mood barometer. I really like to use it, so internally in our consulting topic, we call it the Patricia-O-Meter. How cool is that?

I use it almost all the time. I think it's a great way to find out what the mood is like in my room, because I might come in as a moderator or nurse for a workshop and have no idea if someone got out of bed on the wrong side today, or if someone has a sick child at home and is constantly looking at their cell phone. Maybe someone is not a morning person, like me, for example, and then maybe it's a bit quieter in the workshop for the first two hours.

That's why I like to use it. I create a kind of mood barometer, whether on a virtual whiteboard or a flipchart, and everyone positions themselves on it a bit. I call it the mood barometer check-in, and then there's also a check-out, for example, at a break or at the end of the workshop, and then we always take a look at how the mood has changed.

The individual one, everyone is also allowed to say a sentence like that, or the overall picture, and that really gives me extremely good feedback and also an impression of the room, and then, if I just know the mood of the participants, I can of course respond to it much better than if I have to slowly find out in the course of the workshop. It also creates a lot of empathy when someone says in the morning, “Ah, today's not my day,” and during the break, conversations immediately arise in which the others then offer support and such, and I've only had good experiences with that so far, I must say.

[Claudia Schütze]
It really sounds like I can only agree, Patrizia. That is actually a method that I also know from the training sessions. It wasn't called check-in back then when we did it.

But from the description of what you do, it seems very familiar to me, especially in the comparison of how it is at the beginning and how it might develop at the point when you part ways for the moment. So, I think I can only support that, I believe, is a very sustainable good method.

[Patricia Kleinle]
I'm glad you also had a good experience with it.

[Claudia Schütze]
Good, Patrizia. Shall we move on to the next one?

[Claudia Schütze]
Then our next criterion for good cooperation is the willingness to change. I would like to repeat the guiding principle that you noted down. Be brave enough to try new things and be open to inspect and adapt.

Okay, Patrizia, what is behind that?

[Patricia Kleinle]
In our experience, the willingness to change is based on the ability to reflect. And within the module, it is precisely about taking measures to promote the ability to reflect. Okay.

Exactly, that's the first point. And then, of course, it's also about encouraging people to be open and brave enough to try something new. But really the point at which it hangs, most of the time, is actually the ability to reflect.

If people themselves recognize that there is a need for change or potential for development, then they are much more willing to change themselves or a process or a product. If someone from above says, please change it this way and that. And that's why I always try to use methods in the teams, including in my scrum teams, to train and promote the ability to reflect.

[Claudia Schütze]
Okay, that sounds really interesting. But does that actually refer more to me as an individual or also to processes and teams, for example?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Both, absolutely. It always depends a bit. We often call these reflection sessions retrospectives.

That comes from the agile approach. Depending on how they are structured, they can have an individual focus, but very often they also have a team focus. It's very nice when teams reflect together, for example, based on different categories, what went well, what they have learned, what did not go so well, what they might want to do more of, what they want to start, what they want to do less of.
And over time, this results in a very strong learning curve.

[Claudia Schütze]
That makes a lot of sense. Perhaps I'll say it out loud again: the idea makes a lot of sense, especially if I repeat it at regular intervals, I think. So that I can observe and perceive exactly this development at all.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, exactly. The whole thing is definitely a cycle. So you keep inspecting, learning, deriving measures and adapting your behavior, then inspecting again after a certain period of time.

So it's very important not to wait until the end of the collaboration or the project to hold a lessons-learn session. I don't have anything against lessons-learn sessions, they're very useful, but it's a shame if you only do it at the end. If you start them during the project, you can make adjustments that lead to improvement during the project.

Yes, in very many cases. And if I only do it at the end, then there is potential that is not used.

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely. I think you are totally speaking from my heart right now, Patricia, because in many projects that I have done, some of them still in implementation consulting, but also in the learning environment, I have very often experienced that we did these lessons-learn at the end, of course. But I do believe that people do approach it seriously and that they are very honest with each other about what worked well, but also, and often much more honestly, about what didn't work so well, and try to find reasons for that.

The only problem is that, in this constellation, the people involved very often don't meet again, at least not in these project settings, which we have very often. And that in other new contexts, other people come together who meet again with different previous experiences. And yes, if you were to start a session, so to speak, to say what you said in your last project that you definitely don't want to do again in the next one.

I think that's a good basis for actually taking these lessons learned into the new project. But I've actually never experienced that we've done something like that. And that's why it's important to me to invest in these retrospectives, which you've now contrasted, i.e. retrospective continuously in the project, in the process, or these lessons learned at the end.

Because I believe that learning for the team and for the way I work together in a team is simply significantly greater and better than if I do it just once and it might not be as sustainable.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly, yes. Good. I have three more specific tips on the topic of building on what you just said.
The first specific tip is to reflect in categories. I really like to use that. For example, to give the team a template, a structure, so that the team can reflect on work results and content.
What went well? What are good results? What are our successes?
Where is there still potential? Another category would be, for example, methodological processes. How did we get to this result?
What could we have done better? A third category would be collaboration, the human factor. How did it work?
Communication, for example. That's my first tip. Okay.
Tip number two: derive specific action plans and then follow them up. Oh yes. Often.
I think we all know this. We do lessons learned and then we generally plan to do things differently in the future. And in reality, that doesn't usually work so well.
And what I try to do with the teams is to develop specific action plans where we say, okay, this is the action we are going to take. In the next four weeks, we will do this and that differently and the person is responsible for following up on it. And then in the next retrospective in four weeks, we will also talk about what has changed.
Okay. And very important, specific action plans.

[Claudia Schütze]
Makes sense. Without it, there will be no further comment.

[Patricia Kleinle]
And then the last tip for today's module. That would be to change the methods for reflection. If my spam team knows that I always come up with the same structure for the retrospective, they don't really think about it anymore, they just rattle off the same things they've done in the last few weeks.

And when I come up with a completely new structure or a creative way of expressing how an iteration went, for example, by drawing it or something, then completely new things come to light. That's why my tip is to change the methods of reflection and to do it regularly.

[Claudia Schütze]
That is also a criterion, by the way, which is still on the list. And without support, so also with my learning and training glasses, method diversity is also a criterion for us, which we have named as essential for good learning and good learning offers and methods not for the sake of methods, but methods with meaning. So in that respect, you have my full support for it.

Okay, Patrizia, then I think we could move on to the next criterion.

[Claudia Schütze]
The fourth criterion, the fourth building block, is results orientation.

And your guiding principle here is to keep your eye on the goal to ensure that you generate valuable results with focus. What does that mean in detail?

[Patricia Kleinle]
In detail, this is about first finding out what actually creates value. Which results are valuable at all? And this may sound very trivial, but in reality we sometimes forget it.

We set ourselves a goal and then we only have the goal in mind and sometimes forget to validate whether the goal is even valuable for our target group, be it internal or external customers. And it is really important to keep that in mind and maybe use different methods, such as surveys, design thinking. We also know user journeys, maps are also used a lot in agile.

That we consider what actually creates value in the first place. And when we then realize, ah, there's an aspect that we haven't yet considered, that we can then react to it flexibly.

[Claudia Schütze]
So the flexible seems to me to be particularly important.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Nowadays definitely, yes. Super.

[Claudia Schütze]
What else is important, Patrizia, in the results orientation from the point of view of collaboration?

[Patricia Kleinle]
The whole topic of transparency is important here again. We have already heard in the previous modules how to visualize this roadmap.

With the goal, of course, the first thing is that we have to develop a vision, develop a roadmap.

And everyone has to be aware of this so that we can then pursue this goal, this vision, with focus. And actually, I mean, I'm also working in an agile environment, of course, but in my experience it makes sense to develop long-term or medium-term visions, so to speak. Where do we want to go?

What would be a goal status that we want to achieve? But then to plan the specific implementation plans rather in the short to medium term, for example for the next four weeks or for the next six weeks. And then to check again, to challenge partial results, to invite stakeholders or customers, to discuss the partial results with them and to see if we are still on the right track, so to speak, to generate value and then to plan the next six weeks.

[Claudia Schütze]
Yes, that makes sense. I'm just wondering if I can find a parallel for it. So maybe just a very small aspect to add.

I think it's also important that each individual can identify with this focus on results. Because in the end, of course, there are always the company goals, from which goals are somehow derived for the team, but also for me as an individual employee in a department, something is derived from them, or my role in certain processes and tasks. And I think that's also important to look at.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly, that you generate a kind of shared ownership, so that everyone is responsible for the company's success. There is also this OPR framework, which some companies use, where the company's goals are published from the top down, then broken down to the departmental level and finally to the individual level. And I actually think it's a nice framework that really contributes a lot to this focus on results.

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely. Do you have any tips, Patrizia? You have such great tips for the previous modules.

I listened intently, but he still has a moment's pause for thought for me, including. Do you have any tips for our audience for this criterion?

[Patricia Kleinle]
If we now look again at these hybrid setups, which we would also like to focus on a bit today. In my experience, hybrid setups often make it easier to include different perspectives, since we can quickly invite stakeholders without much of a hurdle to such a meeting of a partial result, simply by virtually connecting them or representatives of the target group. This actually works very well.

And the other tip is that we use tools to prioritize topics. That is, we say these are the work packages that we want to tackle in the next six weeks, then we look at the specific tasks behind them, so to speak, break them down, prioritize them, and keep track of them, so again, the keyword is transparency. And there are some very nice digital tools that can be used very well in this hybrid setup.

In agile, we work a lot with Kanban boards, which are now very widespread and well known. And we used to think that you really needed sticky notes that you held in your hand and stuck from one column to the next, so to speak. And now there are tools that convey this feeling and just work great because they are accessible to everyone at all times.

[Claudia Schütze]
Yes, absolutely. They probably won't convey that feeling, but I think they can at least help people discover the idea behind it. Okay, perfect, great.
Is there anything else you would like to comment on?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Not so much about the building block.

[Claudia Schütze]
Then I would say it is a perfect transition to the fifth building block.

[Claudia Schütze]
And the fifth building block is the learner-friendly culture, the learning culture, learner-friendly culture in the company and in the collaboration context. And your guiding principle here is to give people the freedom to learn in order to promote a culture of change and innovation.

Patrizia, what exactly does that mean in detail?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, in detail, it means that we provide space to improve. And maybe we identify an area where we see potential for development, but we may not yet know exactly how we can do things differently. And in my experience, it is important to give the teams the freedom to exchange ideas, to maybe do a little research on it.

And to promote learning in everyday life and to integrate it so that it is listened to again in a natural way.

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely. Do you have my full support for this? My trainer Herz actually has to say something about this again, because I think it's totally important to establish and define an enabling framework in which this learning can take place for individuals or teams and ultimately for the entire organization.

And if it is not yet a matter of course that everyone can decide for themselves when and how they learn and invest in learning in a trusting context, then vehicles such as learning time agreements can actually be a good first step towards making something like this possible.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly. But I think you can even say more than I can. Of course there are also limitations, especially when we think about reality.
You have to think about the technical and structural conditions of learning companies, of course.

[Claudia Schütze]
You definitely have to. And yet I think that installing a few formats can be a good way of promoting something like that. And above all, maybe I'm speaking a little from the heart here when I say that you should also establish agile learning formats in which the framework is fixed and predetermined.

I think that's what you're very familiar and comfortable with from your own way of working. But the learners, the employees, the team members who are supposed to and allowed to work together must simply define and determine the content of what they want to learn together themselves, because they themselves know best what the topics are where they want to learn right now. And you know, we have had good experiences with BarCamps, for example, in our area and also in the entire tts.
And our Fridays for Learning as a peer-to-peer learning format is, I think, also a very good example of this.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Absolutely. So I also like the idea of giving learners the responsibility for what they do with their learning time. I also believe that it is much more effective than being told what to learn on.

[Claudia Schütze]
Exactly, and if we now, under the roar of collaboration, also ensure that the teams themselves, I think, have a very good idea of where things are still stuck, where things are not going so well. And you also mentioned it earlier with these retrospectives. There I have the places where I reflect, where I identify and where I can consider in a next step, okay, and how can we get better there?

How can we learn? How can we, as a team, just take a few steps forward together? So I think it's all very interrelated.

But an important topic is the learning-conducive environment, as we often call it in training, and a learning-conducive culture.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, I also believe that cross-functional teams can make a major contribution. I work relatively often in cross-functional teams and there is a relatively broad knowledge there. And of course, in your area of expertise, you sometimes have to explain something two or three times, or explain it in a little more detail, I should say.

But you just learn so much from each other in cross-functional teams. And I think it's really worth recording a few key learnings or even sharing them with other people via a platform.

[Claudia Schütze]
Yes, that's a great point, Patricia. You really speak from the heart with all of this, because one of my main concerns is to promote learning within our own department and across departments, and to establish learning opportunities that lead to self-organized learning. And it is very important to me that we actually take up and discuss cross-departmental topics in this, for example in our Yammer community, and also in the Fridays for Learning, because I simply believe that it makes us so much smarter and better overall if we also look to the right and left of our daily work routine and learn from each other, learn with each other.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly, and maybe also get feedback from people on topics or a concept that you might not work with on a daily basis. That's super exciting.

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely. Perfect. I have to smile a little because we don't actually work together every day either, not at all, actually.

A little bit in project contexts, but I think it's really great that we meet in such contexts as this one now, namely this podcast, and I think, so I'm talking about myself now, we have already learned a lot, just from these preliminary discussions on the topic. Very exciting. Patricia, is there anything else you would like to share about this criterion?

If so, what?

[Patricia Kleinle]
One topic in particular: we are still in these hybrid setups. Exactly, in my experience it is important to provide a bit of transparency regarding the individual questions and to have a common platform that everyone uses. If you are in a face-to-face event and write something on a flipchart, you have photo minutes later, but you tend not to refer to them after a year or so.

But if you have platforms where you can search for something using a keyword, then I think it is sustainable. You should take the time to invest one, two, three minutes more and maybe go to the platform and share the knowledge there.

[Claudia Schütze]
And I don't think it's even a question of more time, Patricia, because the time we used to invest in creating photo protocols, I don't want to say or ask how much time the recipients of this message then used to actually look at it and do something with it. But I don't think that's additional work, actually processing it in a digital way, which everyone benefits from in the long term. I think we will have to adapt our way of working in that regard as well.

So this thinking from analog to digital, flipchart and photo protocol. I think that's already obsolete. I think we should use these tools, these collaboration tools, much more intensively for analog encounters, for documentation.

[Patricia Kleinle]
I couldn't agree more. That coincides with our experience.

[Claudia Schütze]
Perfect. Patricia, I think now is a good time to take a look at the variety of methods that we have mentioned so often. So, your guiding principle here is to create a diverse working environment to inspire and activate.

That actually sounds as if you have described the perfect training, the perfect learning opportunity. But we are looking at it from a different perspective today and now, of course, I would be interested to hear from you, Patricia, from the perspective of collaboration and hybrid collaboration, what is important about methodological diversity?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, I think it is very important to use activating methods. That always sounds a bit like a buzzword, but I think there are already a lot of methods that activate participants in different ways and I think it is also very important for activation to bring a certain variety into the methods. It is certainly very important to maintain a balance, so not to overwhelm participants.

But you also have to take into account that each person feels better addressed by different methods. That's why I try to change the methods a bit over time and try out different ones.

[Claudia Schütze]
You have my full support. Methodological diversity is really a criterion that we think about very intensively in learning contexts and simply because we know, also in this whole, certainly against the background of this discussion about learning types, which we know today do not exist and yet, I believe, people have different preferences and also connect to different methods in different ways. And in this respect, this criterion fits perfectly for me.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Exactly. And if we take a step back again. I think it's also important that before we choose a method, we first take some time to think about what purpose we are fulfilling and what our goals are.

And then choose the method and, especially in hybrid setups, think about which tools we are using. For example, do I use a virtual tool to involve all participants, yes, an equal tool, or do I do a mixture, for example, with participants who are on site, present, working on a topic on a flipchart or in a discussion group, and how do I deal with remote participants, how do I involve them? This is where very exciting challenges arise, but there are also great solutions.

[Claudia Schütze]
Patrizia, we'll meet again about this. Perhaps for a second episode, where we'll take a very specific look at how I can do it in these hybrid settings so that it's a good event and a good collaboration for each group of participants. Yes, that's right.

And we have also thought about this topic from a learning perspective and I do indeed believe that the role of the moderator, perhaps a technical moderator, is becoming very important again in these hybrid settings, because it is a great challenge to offer both the present participants and the virtually connected participants an equally high-quality experience of the event.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, we have definitely had that experience too, including for workshops, so not just in remote scenarios. I can absolutely confirm that. We have really found that it needs a voice from the remote participants in the room.

Remote participants cannot be integrated as well as people in the room. You often have them on a screen, where you can also see the videos from the remote participants, but in the room you tend to let your gaze wander through the room, the people in the room. And that's why you need someone who keeps an eye on the chat, who is perhaps also a cameraman or camerawoman, to make sure that the remote participants also see the image of the people who are currently speaking or of the flipchart on which something is being worked on or perhaps take pictures that are then made available to the remote participants almost in real time.

[Claudia Schütze]
Absolutely. And just involve a person who ensures that it is accessible to everyone, these media, I'll just call it that for now. Sounds like super exciting and very important and good approaches, Patrizia.

Do you have a final specific tip on the topic of methodological diversity?

[Patricia Kleinle]
Yes, I do. And that is to really create your own method box. I think it's easy to get overwhelmed if you research on the internet or read books about different methods.

And I find it really exciting to do research sessions like that from time to time, I think it's really important and valuable. But I think it's even more valuable to try out a method or learn about one from a colleague, to make a note of it and then build up your own method box over time and structure it. For example, mine is now structured according to target group, size, maturity of digital collaboration, and the purpose I want to achieve.

And it's really exciting to use methods again and again and then try to note down what went well and for which purpose which method is suitable.

[Claudia Schütze]
Sounds very, very, very exciting and I would love to take a look at your method box, Patricia. And we would probably find that we share many methods, even if they have different titles. Absolutely, yes.

For our different types of work, actually. Patricia, I think that I would like to leave that as a good final word now.

[Claudia Schütze]
For a good 50 minutes, very, very, very exciting information on the topic of what building blocks of good cooperation are, no matter in which context.

And the context defines which building block is emphasized and how. I think we have succeeded in presenting this to our listeners, or at least we hope so. And I would now actually like to conclude by saying that I was reminded a lot of our six criteria for good learning or good training.

They include things like clear structuring, a variety of methods, a learning-friendly environment and various others. And if you feel like delving into it a little more, there was an episode some time ago where we talked about exactly that. And yes, just listen for yourself to see if you can find these parallels, which Patrizia and I have actually already discussed at one point or another.

And we would be happy if you would like to exchange ideas with us. So give us your feedback, tell us what you think about what we have discussed here today. And Patrizia, for me it was a super learning session today.

Thank you so much for that. Thank you for the inspiring exchange. Thank you for being my guest today in this episode where we talked about good collaboration.

[Patricia Kleinle]
Thank you, dear Claudia. I really enjoyed the exchange.

[Claudia Schütze]
Me too. Patrizia Happ, thank you very much and thank you for joining us. This time in a slightly longer format again and we would be happy to see you again in the next episode.

Until then, take care and goodbye. Oh yes, have you already subscribed to us? You can do that wherever you prefer to listen to your podcasts.

Lernlust is released every three weeks and we look forward to your feedback and, above all, to interacting with you. You can write to us on Podigy or on Twitter or LinkedIn and please feel free to tell us what you particularly like about our podcast and where we could perhaps improve. And please feel free to give us a rating on Google Podcasts or any other portal of your choice. So, we'll see you at the next Lernlust.