Fundamentals of Collaboration

In today’s evolving global community, collaboration and teamwork have become increasingly necessary for success. To prepare you to be productive citizens in a global society, you must learn how to collaborate effectively.

In this lesson, you will develop an understanding of key teamwork skills and learn some tips on how to collaborate effectively within a team. You will then learn and explore a common practice of collaboration in computer science.

Teamwork is an essential part of workplace success. The way team members function as a group is as important to the team’s success as the quality of what it produces. Because how they work together is so important to achieving the team’s goals, members need to be attentive to how they interact and collaborate with each other. Employers look for people who not only know how to work well with others, but who understand when everyone in the workplace works together to accomplish goals, everyone achieves more.

Accountability - the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, and decisions.

Collaboration - the action of working with members of a team to produce or create something

Mutual Trust - confidence between team members that each puts the best interest of the team ahead of individual priorities

Inspiring Vision - a clear direction that motivates commitment to a collective effort

Skills & Talent - the combined abilities and expertise to accomplish the required tasks and work productively with others

Rewards - recognition of achievement toward objectives and reinforcement of behavior that supports the team’s work

Conflict Resolution - working to resolve different opinions in a team environment

Synergy - the ability for a group to accomplish more together than they could individually

Shared Values - a common set of beliefs and principles about how and why the team members will work together

Explore

Take a quick look at the infographic to learn a few tips that may be useful to you when collaborating with a team. There are many other strategies out there that can help you in building your knowledge base in collaboration with others.

As you see it is important that you build a foundation of expectations when working with teams to ensure a common goal is met; however, at times you may work in a smaller setting in which the approach can be slightly different.

Let’s say you were working with a partner.

What type of strategy would you consider to effectively complete a task?

A common practice in computer science is pair programming. Pair programming is a software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The two programmers switch roles frequently.

Pair Programming Videos

Now let’s take a look at Code.org’s videos explaining pair programming and how it is beneficial when working in computer science.

Code.org Videos, CC–BY–NC-ND 4.0Code.org Videos, CC–BY–NC-ND 4.0

Here are a few of the great things about pair programming to remember!

Two heads are better than one: Coming up with ideas is easier with a partner
It’s a lot easier to spot mistakes
You can focus better on the task at hand
It’s sociable, fun and can make you a better programmer

You now have a glimpse of a few ways in which you can improve your collaboration skills within a team. Collaborating is helpful because everyone has different strengths. A benefit of working on a project in a team, can reduce the burden and move the project forward expeditiously.

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