Team Dynamics

Working together across the boundaries of disciplines or organisations is often essential tomeaningfully contribute to complex societal challenges. And, as a consequence,interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, team science and communities are buzz words in every strategy and roadmap. But how do you bring this into every day’s practice?

The core component of each inter- and transdisciplinary endeavour, and the key to its success, is the success of the team or community itself. Co-creation is the best way to set the foundations for a successful team or community. It generates ownership, motivation and open communication; it prevents conflict, unclarity on tasks or perspectives during implementation and people dropping out due to a lack of time for the joint endeavour.

Collaborative meeting facilitation

Do you want to organise a community meeting? Are you planning to have an away- or strategy day with your team? Do you want to use a sandpit approach (see Figure) for developing a proposal or roadmap? We facilitate your collaborative meetings, ranging from one-off team strategy days and community meetings to sandpits of several days, from making progress with your team to resolving conflict situations. Also, we have experience in facilitating meetings in every stage of a collaborative project, from initiation to evaluation.

We make sure that everyone’s perspective is heard, that a real dialogue takes place and that ideas and solutions are co-created. All in a playful way. At the same time, we are outcome- and action-oriented making the invested time worthwhile and securing the desired outcomes. We create a calm and safe space aimed at learning, co-creating and making progress.

Process facilitation

You work in an inter- or transdisciplinary team. The outcomes of your project are your main focus. At the same time, the collaborative process is an important part of your project as your team’s success is the key to the project’s success. You might even have some funding available to organise interdisciplinary encounters, to learn collaborative skills and to reflect on the collaborative process.

As process facilitators, we can guide you and your team through the ups and downs of collaborative work. We work from several theoretical frames on team collaboration and team science, on collaboration across the boundaries of disciplines and organisations and on group dynamics. Our neutral position makes it possible to create a safe space, draw out the views of all team members, integrate those into a shared understanding and, from there, truly co-create inter- or transdisciplinary approaches.

Typically, we work in a sequence of meetings with the team in the starting phase of the project. Evaluation meetings later in the collaborative process are also possible. The exact content of those meetings is driven by the work that you need to do together as we believe in “learning-by-doing”. To fully understand what’s happening and to make your skills last, we not only reflect on the process, but also show you some insights from group dynamics, collaboration and team science literature.

Methods and techniques

We use a wide range of conversation structures, facilitation techniques and methods for inclusive and participative decision-making. Not only are we experienced Liberating Structures, Deep Democracy and Genuine Contact facilitators, we also co-designed Shapes Language helping us to deepen our insights from a systemic viewpoint. Also, we use methods such as Open Space Technology and Appreciative Inquiry.