Structured Collaboration

Collaboration by design, not by default

Module 6 · Lesson 6.2

Apply: build the canvas for your own interface

Record your interface on both sides, specify the input, and draft the definition behind it.

Lesson 2 of 4About 45 minutes in the canvas

Key idea

One interface, recorded on both sides, with the input specified in the receiving team’s words and a draft definition linked to both.

In this open version

Open the Structured Collaboration Canvas™ and start a new canvas named after your interface; it opens in a new tab. If you want to see a finished canvas first, try the worked example.

Open the canvas ↗

What to build

  1. Add the two teams on either side of the interface, with their leads.
  2. On the supplying team’s canvas, add the task that produces what passes across the interface, and add it as a deliverable to the receiving team, with how it is sent.
  3. On the receiving team’s canvas, add the task that depends on it, and add it as an input from the supplying team, with how it arrives.
  4. Specify the input. Write what the receiving team actually needs, not just its name. “A business forecast” becomes “a forecast including ticket volumes by client, new services going live, and support hours needed”.
  5. Rate the input: roughly how well, as a percentage, does what arrives today meet the need?
  6. Add how often the task happens and roughly how long it takes, so the cost of getting it wrong is visible.
  7. Open the Definitions view and draft a definition for the item that causes the most trouble: what it must include, a test two reasonable people could apply independently, and a proposed owner.
  8. Link the definition to the input and the deliverable.
  9. In the Parking lot, add anything you don’t know about the other side, and any issue the two teams can’t settle between them.
  10. Open the Interfaces view and check that the interface appears on both sides, with the definition behind it.
  11. Save.

Hints

  • Keep it to one interface. A canvas with every team you deal with is a different exercise, and a much longer one.
  • Write the input in the receiving team’s words. If you are on the supplying side, write what you believe they need, and put “to confirm with them” in the parking lot.
  • The rating is a starting point for the conversation, not a verdict on the other team.
  • If you can’t write a test that two people would apply the same way, the definition isn’t finished. Put it in the parking lot as a question for the conversation instead.

When you have finished

Keep your canvas open for the next lesson, where you plan the conversation with the other team.

Your progress

Back: Choosing the interface
Next: What you will change

Course contents · This is the open version of the course. Your notes, progress and check scores are saved on this device, and in your account when you are signed in.