Collaborative writing is a common way people in the worlds of business, government, science, and technology handle technical writing projects. Collaboration involves a mindset that sees the whole as more important than its parts. Collaboration seeks to combine multiple skill sets, knowledge bases, ideas, and engagement from a number of people for the sole purpose of accomplishing a goal that benefits all.

A 2018 survey asked various professionals what portion of their work week was devoted to writing, collaborative writing, and international communications.^[1] The results shown in Table 1 indicate that collaborative writing makes up a significant portion of overall writing tasks. Though both engineers and programmers spent most of their time writing, engineers spent 35 percent of their timing writing, compared to programmers who spent a quarter of their time writing. Engineers spent 19 percent of their time planning and writing documents collaborative, compared to 12 percent for programmers. Conversely, programmers spent more time communicating internationally (18 percent) versus engineers (14 percent).

Research has also shown that “writing in general and CW [collaborative writing] in particular have been recognized to be fundamental to most professional and academic practices in engineering.”^[2]  Figure 1shows that engineers rate writing skills as extremely important to career advancement.^[3]

Figure 1 The importance of writing for career advancement for surveyed engineers. ^[4]

Like any kind of teamwork, collaborative writing requires the entire team to be focused on a common objective. According to Lowry et al., an effective team “negotiates, coordinates, and communicates during the creation of a common document.”^[5] The collaborative writing process is iterative and social, meaning the team works together and moves back and forth throughout the process, just as you move back and forth through the document design process when you write individually.

Successful collaborative writing is easier when you understand the different strategies you can apply, how best to control the document, and the different roles people can assume. Figure 2 outlines the various activities involved at various stages of the collaborating writing process.

Team Formation

In the first stage of collaborative writing, talk about backgrounds and strengths as you introduce yourself. It’s useful to share whether you’re good with editing, project management, or graphics, for example. But realize that a task that you consider a strength may eventually get assigned to another group member, and that your job is to put aside personal preferences and work toward the group’s goal of creating a strong technical document.  Although you’re not yet planning the details of the writing project, it’s still useful to talk about availability and schedules in general at the team formation stage. For teams working virtually, you may want to discuss if you want to communicate asynchronously, schedule some meetings in real time, or a combination of both. Team formation involves both deeper and wider learning, learning about one another and identifying the parameters of the collaborative situation.

Team Planning

Decide on a Convener and Recorder

Even though collaboration requires equal effort on everyone’s part, toward the end of the team formation stage or early in the team planning stage, the group should determine who will lead or convene this particular group, and what that role entails. A group leader or convener can facilitate communication, no matter how the group defines the role and responsibilities. In the same way, decide on a recorder so that someone is capturing notes to which the group can refer, and decide where those notes can be accessed.

Analyze the Collaborative Communication Project

Analyzing the communication project is a key early step in collaborative writing to ensure that all group members have the same understanding of the communication’s audience, purpose, and type. Discuss the type of information that needs to be gathered or developed. Discuss whether there’s a need for graphics, and identify potential types of graphics that may be needed, given the communication’s audience and purpose. It’s a good idea for the recorder to create a brief document, even something as simple as a bulleted list, to record the results of the group’s analysis. In this way, everyone collaborating has the same short reference document.

Determine Tasks and Roles

Task identification follows logically out of project analysis. List out the tasks that need to be completed in order to draft the communication. Once group members determine tasks, they should identify roles—who is responsible for each task? There may be one or more than one person collaborating on tasks, depending on the expertise needed and the size of the group. Try to divide tasks as fairly as possible so that each team member has equal responsibility for the outcome of the project. Make sure to identify all tasks, including feedback and revision as well as document creation.

Set Deliverables and Due Dates

Order the tasks chronologically and assign deadlines to each task. At this stage, make sure the group remembers to plan on time for feedback and revision; don’t assume that a draft document will be the final one.

Synthesize Outcomes into One Planning Document

A table often works as a planning document, since it’s a clear way to blend all necessary information. Here’s one example of a planning document for a relatively large technical writing project.

Note that it includes completion dates for key phases of the project, and also meeting dates with the subject and purpose of those meetings. Also note that:

• Several meetings are scheduled in which members discuss the information they are finding or are not finding. (One team member may have information another member is looking everywhere for.)
• Several meetings are scheduled to review the project details, specifically, the topic, audience, purpose, situation, and outline. As you learn more about the topic and become more settled in the project, your group may want to change some of these details or make them more specific.
• Several rough drafts are scheduled. Group members peer-review each other’s drafts of individual sections twice, the second time to see if the recommended changes have worked. Once the complete draft is put together, it too is reviewed twice.

Optional Planning Step – Style Guide

If you’re working on a project in which individual sections will be written by different writers, and if your organization does not already have a style guide, you may need to agree on elements of style before you move into document production. Agreements can range from the high level, such as whether to have a background section, to smaller items, such as when to use italics or bold, whether to hyphenate certain terms, consistent terminology for certain things, and more. Identifying and agreeing on certain elements of style will make the review and revision process easier.

Document Production

Document production should occur according to the schedule set in the planning document. Realize that sometimes, plans go awry through unforeseen circumstances (a person being interviewed as an information source needs to re-schedule; systems go down). If there’s a major disruption, then that should be noted on the planning document, and new deadlines published. However, that’s only for major, unforeseen disruptions; otherwise, the group needs to stick with the tasks and deadlines that all members discussed and accepted.

Note that when you produce technical communications as a team, there is always the chance that one of the team members, for whatever reason, may have more or less than a fair share of the workload. At the end of the project, if the team realizes that work became somewhat imbalanced for whatever reason, the group may ask certain members to do more of the finish-up work, such as proofreading.

Finalizing the Communication

Do final revision and editing after getting feedback, in whatever way the group has decided. Group members may have been designated as reviewers and revisers, or the whole group, especially if it’s small, may contribute to this final phase. Before submitting the document, it may be useful for the whole group to review their earlier analysis to make sure that the communication produced addresses those points as an important final check before submitting the document.

Evaluating the Collaboration

Realize that group collaboration doesn’t always end with document submission; evaluating the collaboration is a final step. It’s often useful to review what happened during the collaborative process to see what worked and what didn’t work. It may be the case, either professionally or in a college course, that you’re also asked to evaluate your teammates’ contributions. Even if the group itself doesn’t do this sort of a review, it may be useful for you to reflect on how the group functioned; how you functioned; what you learned from the collaborative process; and how you might contribute to that process the next time to make the collaboration move even more smoothly.

The Importance of Collaboration

Successful collaboration is contingent upon the very definition of collaboration according to Blanchard et.al.—fostering an environment that promotes communication, learning, maximum contribution, and innovation.^[2] In other words, team members must feel comfortable sharing and at times debating their ideas. Members should be allowed to fully operate in the diversity they bring to the team. Allowing a contribution of ideas from diverse perspectives is best for the project because it takes into consideration the diverse audience who will most likely be the readers of the project. In the end, openness in discussion creates a product that considers the audience, a primary rule in writing for technical audiences.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirms the following characteristics of successful collaboration:^[6]

• Have a common purpose and goal
• Trust each other
• Clarify roles
• Communicate openly and effectively
• Appreciate diversity
• Balance the team’s focus

As you can see, developing skills in collaboration not only helps create a stronger technical communication, but also helps create a stronger workplace environment.

^[1] J. Swartz, S. Pigg, J. Larsen, J. Helo Gonzalez, R. De Haas, and E. Wagner, “Communication in the workplace: What can NC State students expect?” Report from the Professional Writing Program, North Carolina State University, 2018.

^[2] J. Gimenez and J. Thondhlana, “Collaborative writing in Engineering: Perspectives from research and implications for undergraduate education,” European Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 37, no. 5, 2012, 471-487. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2012.714356

^[3] J. Swartz, et. al.

^[4] J. Swartz, et. al.

^[5] P.B. Lowry, A. Curtis, and M.R. Lowry, “Building a taxonomy and nomenclature of collaborative writing to improve interdisciplinary research and practice,” Journal of Business Communication, vol. 41, 2004, pp. 66-97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0021943603259363

^[6] United States Office of Personnel Management (1997). Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/teams/building-a-collaborative-team-environment/