Writing as a team
The highs and lows of writing collaboratively
I have to admit – one of the best things about working as an independent consultant is that I don’t have to deal with endless revisions of reports and plans! It’s soooooo satisfying to have an exchange with my lovely clients, pull together contributions into a coherent and clear storyline, and get their brilliance out into the world. Less compromise, less tiring, faster, more control. Jealous? 😊
Well, don’t be. Working with colleagues adds depth and new insights to our work – and it’s usually unavoidable, anyway. Why not make it as pleasant and rewarding as possible?
Collaborative writing is especially valuable when you have
many contributors (think official/comprehensive plans, master plans, transit plans),
technical content, and
voices and expertise that are different than yours.
But, writing as a team becomes painful when it looks something like this:
Collaborative writing – in action
You can improve the process of writing together as a team if you take a few key steps:
1. Plan the process.
Establish guiding principles. Here are a few good ones: clarity, precision, positivity, and efficiency.
Clarity: Everyone should understand the intended audience and purpose of the document from the start.
Precision: Contributors can focus on providing accurate, precise information, and presenting it in ways that will make sense to the intended audience.
Positivity: Everyone has something valuable to offer. Park the egos, provide direct but constructive feedback when appropriate, build trust. As one editor put it recently at the Editors Canada conference, have empathy: collaborate with your head and your heart.
Efficiency: Everyone from the top-down should ask themselves if their proposed change is really necessary.
Accountability is essential. Everyone should understand the project cycle and each other’s roles. As part of the work plan, benchmarks for input, revisions, and additions should be included.
Appoint an editor to stitch the various contributions together into one voice and ensure it’s clear, cohesive, and correct. Pro tip: managers and directors should stick to commenting on content – not editing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
2. Use or create an in-house style guide.
Expectations should be clear before contributors submit drafts. Refer to, or create, a style guide for commonly used words and phrases. Everyone should be using the same words to describe the same things. It can also include preferred spellings, grammatical choices, punctuation, and usage.
3. Trust each other.
You’re all experts, but you may have different points of view. Make changes together: set up working meetings to revise content together, before sending it for review.
4. When writing:
Be direct. Don’t tiptoe around the facts.
Avoid too many caveats, quotes, footnotes, policies: no reader will want something that isn’t concise, quick, and easy to read.
Use appropriate (usually simple) language, and short sentences and paragraphs.
Focus on the shared purpose of the document and why/how it’s relevant to the main reader.
5. When providing feedback:
Ask yourself if your additions or edits really make the document better, or if it’s just your personal preference (hello, managers!). Is the change really necessary?
Maybe you’ll end up with a process that looks more like this!
Why is it so tricky?
Think about the people you work with and the many different fields they work in. This may include land use or transportation planning, housing policy, cultural planning, public administration, development, architecture, engineering, design, law, or something else.
Some planners may be more technical and data-oriented, focused on something like population forecasting, while others do extensive research and policy writing, or write zoning by-laws. Still others may be more people-oriented, working in communications or facilitation. From the big picture to the minutiae, planners use and develop their skills through many different types of work. But that doesn’t mean we all automatically understand one another.
If you're working with other professionals, take a little bit of time and learn their language. – Barbara Myers, Ashdown Planners*
The scale of work also differs. Your work may be very local, or it may be global. It depends which industry you’re in, which level of government you work for, or the type of non-profit you’re working with.
And let’s not forget the people behind the plans! Planners themselves are each coming from different places and experiences. Many who have studied geography, for example, view the community in spatial terms; others studied political science or social work and aim to address the root causes of the issues they see.
Motivations differ, too; for some it’s just an interesting job, while for others it’s a calling, an opportunity to make a significant difference in their community or society more broadly. Planners also bring their own lived experiences to their work, with their unique and individual perspectives, histories, and approaches. We are not all starting from the same place, which makes collaboration interesting and clear communication all the more important.
These variations make planning a great career choice, with lots of opportunity to work in a wide range of fields and environments, build different types of expertise, and bring different perspectives to the work. This variety means, however, that planners can take for granted that they understand each other, and understand other city builders in related fields. Each brings their own training and skills to a project, see different components as being important, and communicate their views using different terminology. In some workplaces, this isn’t an issue – you learn enough about a colleague’s field to be able to work together. But step outside of that immediate environment, and it can become more challenging.
*Barbara Myers, MCIP, RPP is currently working as an Associate with Aequum Global Access Inc. and the Trinity Centres Foundation. She has 40+ years experience as a planner with LM Architectural Group and Number TEN Architectural Group in Winnipeg and SvN Architects + Planners in Toronto.
Barbara sits on the Board of Directors of the National Trust for Canada and Heritage Winnipeg. She is a past Board member of the Council for Canadian Urbanism, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Accreditation Council, and Plan Canada, the Canadian Institute of Planners.
Questions for members
What are the sticking points for your team when writing collaboratively?
What role to managers and directors play in editing the documents that your team produces?
What’s your experience working with planners and other professionals in related but separate fields and specializations?
Next week: Meet Sean Hertel!
We do our ourselves a real disservice when we get into “the how”, when we get into the policies, procedures, requirements. Those are professional and technical things we have to get into. But we first have to tell a compelling story.
I don't think that we give people enough credit for being able to understand why it is we do what we do. And I think, like anybody, you tell someone to do something – like when parents tell a kid to do something, the first question is “why?” Everyone needs a compelling reason why, and it's so simple, so fundamental, and yet it's so often missing. We're missing the story, we're missing the big picture.
Get ready for a great interview - next Wednesday!
- Lisa