Why Every Group Writing Effort Turns Into a Nightmare

We're not really good at providing input.

Get your ducks in a row, Scott Wagers (On Maas river, Maasmechelen, Belgium)

Some of the most important projects in any field are large-scale collaborations or consortium projects. It's pretty much a given that if you want to move a field forward, it has to be through a large-scale collaboration. Silos or smaller-scale collaborations are too novelty-focused and incremental to make a real difference.

The proposals that secure funding for these types of projects require a collaborative writing process. Perhaps we could better describe it as a collaborative design process. Thinking of it as just writing a proposal assumes that the writing is the hardest part—it's not.

The hardest part is figuring out what you are going to do in the project and how it integrates with what everyone else is doing. One of the biggest factors that makes this difficult is that we do not know how to provide input.

A common approach to giving input is to read the proposal and make edits as you go. This approach is wrong for many reasons. First, editing is something that comes toward the end of the writing process. Often I see people immediately jumping in with text edits right from the first draft. This is also problematic because the piece will lack any voice as multiple people choose a style and choose words that sound best to them.

A funding proposal is a logical argument, a pitch for funding, and that requires a clear-to-follow line of logic that is hard to achieve with too many voices. This style of providing input is worsened by the curse of knowledge. When we know something and what is in front of us relates to it, we want to add what we know, even if it disrupts the logical flow. The result: obfuscated and confusing text.

What many people don't realize is that when it comes to a collaborative writing project, there are four different types of input, and the best ways to provide each of them are not directly obvious.

Four Types of Input

1. Verbal

Yes, the most important input to a collaborative writing process is verbal.

Merging different perspectives and meeting diverse needs requires rapid and real-time feedback. If anything, a good discussion helps to build mutual understanding. For collaborative writing, the discussion is part of the writing process. Once you have worked out the concept of what you are writing about, the actual writing part becomes much easier.

2. Strategic

This is the input you give in the early phases of writing together. It consists mostly of comments or questions on the written text. This can be very helpful. If anything, it tells the person who drafted the text that more could be done to explain the point he or she is trying to make.

3. Content

You may be asked to contribute content. The key for this type of input is to lose your attachment to perfection. When you are asked to provide content, it is because your expertise or knowledge of you and your group are needed. It is not a request for polished text.

The problem is when this content is delayed, it becomes a bottleneck for the whole effort. Often, what you are really thinking to do becomes more detailed when you write it down. Writing is a thinking process. Thus, it is more important to produce a rough draft or even a copy and paste from an old document quickly than a refined piece of content later.

What would meetings be like if everyone took the time to polish and refine their thoughts before speaking? Collaborative writing thrives on the rapid cycle iterative process of providing input before it is perfected.

4. Editing

First, edit for logical flow. Does the argument of each sentence, each paragraph, and each section make sense to you? Is there something missing? Then edit for spelling and grammar, and unless you are the primary writer, don't change the voice of the writing.

The last thing you do is edit for grammar and spelling.

When the Input Comes Matters

It was a Friday evening, and usually I don't do any work on Friday evenings, but the deadline was the next Tuesday. So, I opened my email inbox. There they were, the work package write-ups we had been waiting weeks to get.

I opened the first attachment and scanned the document.

Then the next two.

Uh oh.

I sagged in my chair.

The work package descriptions were off. In this funding program, the call topics were very specific. What we were submitting was not answering the call. It was doing what everyone did routinely for their research.

I consoled myself—at least we had something. Maybe the reviewers wouldn't notice?

The next day, when the sun was still rising, I looked at them again. It dawned on me: I can shape what they sent to fit the call topic. It was going to take some bold changes.

I called the researcher who was coordinating the proposal and explained what I was thinking. He agreed.

Some scrambling and some late nights. We restructured the work packages and explained it to the rest of the researchers.

It turned out to be one of the highest scores we have ever seen a consortium get on a funding proposal.

Don't Write in Silos

Our role in a collaborative proposal, or any type of collaborative writing, is not to produce our own siloed version of what you would like to do, or what you alone think. It's to be part of a process of collective thinking.

Writing is thinking, and writing is leadership. Collaborative writing is collective leadership.

We all know how to think on our own; we also know how to think together. Little attention is ever given to the skill of writing as a form of thinking.

Most writing advice is about clarity or building a story. Sure, there is a lot of advice about journaling, which is clearly a type of thinking, but that is writing or thinking in a silo.

Collaborative writing is a process of highly structured thinking. Like any structured process, it is important to know how to optimize that process and to be clear about the inputs needed.

"When a person reads a piece of writing, it changes the way they think. When you change the way someone thinks, you may change the way they act. Writing, therefore, is leading." —Nathan Baschez

A great collaboratively written document is a work of art. It also is likely something that we will refer to and serve as a guide for a long time. It will definitely change the way people act.

We should double down on our commitment to collaborative writing and hone our skill in providing input:

• Prioritize attending meetings where the concept is being developed

• Give strategic input—ask questions and pose new ideas

• Use a prototyping mindset when providing content—it is just a draft or first thoughts

• Avoid changing the voice of the writing when asked to copy edit—read the piece of writing through, then go back and provide suggested edits

• Read and re-read the entire piece, even the parts you think don't concern you

If you believe as I do that collaborative writing is a powerful form of leadership, support the Big Project Collective and learn how you can make changes that matter with big projects.