How does a team divide their workload and merge their products into a cohesive document?
It is week 3 of our virtual collaboration project and the cogs in the Team 6 machine are still turning. The process, however, is not without its challenges.
I think one of the biggest tests faced by our virtual team is dividing the workload among the nine members in a way that is fair and results in a product with a consistent layout and style.
We have moved into an editing phase in our project. Last week, we had assigned two team members the task of writing the first draft of our instructions. They were working from style guides put together by our research team. They also had a lengthy phone conversation about the style of writing, headings, and numbering that they would use. They decided to work on separate sections and merge them into a first draft. This all seemed to make sense; agreeing on the style and formatting, and sharing the workload between them.
The first draft came back and each section was well-written and clear. However, even with all the prior planning and preparation, it still contained many inconsistencies in format and writing style. It also highlighted how an application can appear differently on all computers, and how everyone has their own way of carrying out a task. For example, if two people were describing how to save a document on Microsoft Word, one person might say “Click File> Save”. Another person might choose to say “Ctrl + S”.
This left us with a dilemma. What is the best way to divide work in a virtual project? We started to use Google Docs in order to critique the draft and make suggestions. Having never used Google Docs before, I was fascinated at how I could watch somebody on the other side of the world make live changes to a document. The writers took the comments on board and redrafted the piece before leaving it in the hands of the editors. But again, the same question stands: how do we divide the editing among the editors?
One suggestion was to give a section to each editor, allow them time to edit and then put the pieces back together. However, I feared that this would produce the same result as in the writing phase: inconsistencies in style and formatting. The ideal situation would be to have a live meeting and edit the piece together. Alas, time differences and work commitments are also preventing this. While researching how to overcome this obstacle, one editor found this useful article:
https://www.samepage.io/blog/9-rules-better-real-time-team-document-collaboration
We are taking on much of the advice outlined in the above article.
- We are not oversharing the editing task. The rest of the team have access to the document as we edit it, but they have agreed to save their comments until we are finished.
- We have an editing channel set up in Slack so that we can discuss the process and ask questions, and not overcrowd the document with comments.
- No changes are made until the full editing team is in agreement. I think this is essential and shows respect towards your team mates.
- Also on that note, nobody is to overwrite changes made by somebody else, without discussing it first.
I have suggested that we each make our editing comments on Google Docs to the full document rather than sections, and respond with whether we agree or disagree. We will make changes when the editing team are in agreement. Hopefully, this will lead to a more consistent look and feel to the document. If this process does not work, however, we may have to go back to the drawing board and find out from a technical communication professional how editing works in the professional world.
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