An Analysis of Collaborative Problem-Solving Mechanisms in Sponsored Projects: Applying the 5-Day Sprint Model.
Amy Raubenolt · Journal of Research Administration · 2016
IntroductionSprint design sessions are routinely employed by Google Ventures and at numerous other software companies both nationally and internationally (Knapp, Zeratsky, & Kowitz, 2016). The sprint model puts key members of team in a room with a Decider and a Facilitator for six hours a day for five days to solve a problem, design a product, or develop a solution. Sprint team participants are forbidden from using cell phones or other technology while participating in sprint session. By putting all stakeholders in a room, sprint experience forces team members to commit to making progress, helps teams move abstract ideas and hunches into concrete action, keeps teams focused on what's important, and encourages prompt decision-making and follow-up (Knapp, Sprint, 2016). The sprint also often makes use of a scrum master, whose job is to remind team, via use of a bell or other sound device, when team veers off-topic or begins developing solutions or ideas that may be valuable but are not applicable to specific sprint goal. The sprint team must understand, map, develop, and test a working prototype in one week. A one-week deadline motivates sprint teams to produce quickly and efficiently.Sprints are common in development of websites, apps, and other software. Google Venture has also introduced sprint model to manufacturing processes and seen successes emerge from its application in that field as well. The challenge in applying sprint to sponsored projects is that research administration rarely develops a product or a single-user experience. Processes are multi-layered, over span of a year or more, involve many players contributing to grant management, and must often be nimble and adaptable to changes in regulation or law. To meet needs of research administration, sprint concept would need to be modified to generate an improved process.Current Problem-solving MechanismsEffective teamwork is key in research administration, and in all organizations. The Harvard Business Review published a study in 2016 that found that the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more (Cross, 2016). The challenge is to make most of these collaborative experiences. Sponsored Project offices typically employ long-term workgroups or committees. In these collaborative environments, team members meet for an hour each month or twice a month to analyze a process, project, or department need and to make recommendations for improvement and implementation. The workgroups use brain-storming, mapping, group discussion, and critical questioning to move towards recommendations and create deliverable materials that illustrate process changes or provide training. A variety of individuals with diverse roles appear as contributors on department committees. Workgroup duration commonly varies between several months to several years, with participation fluctuating with staff turnover and committee burn-out. The workgroup model of problem-solving has flaws. Progress towards solutions is slow, individuals miss meetings and lose motivation to contribute, staff turnover challenges process towards achieving goals, outspoken individuals in brainstorming sessions tend to drive progress in a single direction, schedules grow increasingly clogged by meetings, and department morale flags. Teams spend a long time on critical tasks, leading project to fall behind, and can struggle to complete tasks and achieve their goals (Kisielnicki, 2016).Additionally, work groups strive to produce a final product or recommendation and do not experience critical iterative design sequences. These final products occur at end of a work group's convened effort. Redesign of those end products is slow and cumbersome since time it takes to convene work group, gather feedback on needed revisions, and collaborate on a new design stretches over weeks or months, sometimes years. …