Step 4: Design and perform an experiment

[#1]

Hello Collaboratory Scientists!

Welcome back to Collaboratory Month 🧬

The fourth step in the Collaboratory method is to design and perform an an experiment to test your hypothesis. (If you haven't already, formulate a question on the Step 1 post, form a hypothesis on the Step 2 post, and make a Collaboratory prediction on the step 3 post).

To design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis, you'll have to think about what to set as your independent and dependent variable. You change or control the independent variable and record the effect it has on the dependent variable. 

Example: Perhaps, you want to test an experiment about whether having more meetings results in more efficient collaboration.

A good question to begin with might be: ”Does having more meetings result in a project being finished more quickly?"

A good hypothesis might be: If we decrease time spent meeting by 25%, the project will still be finished in the same time.

A good prediction might be: If my team reduces meetings by 25% (and uses that time instead for async work), then the project will be finished on the same timeline. 

A good experiment might be: Reduce the total amount of time your team spends talking on zoom about a project by 25%. 

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We'll award the Collaboratory badge to all Community members who ask a Collaboratory question :) Keep an eye on the main Collaboratory post to discover next steps!  

[javodev]

Question: How long does it take to demonstrate Confluence's effectiveness to CEOs? Any strategy?

Hypothesis: If we use Confluence as documentation, progress report and user manual repository, the PO can show it on virtual meetings. In about 4 to 6 months, CEOs will be amazed for the availability of the documents and the work done, deciding to invest in software.

Prediction: Presenting estimation charts and the effect the tools have had on the quality of the deliverables will increase the chance that CEOs will invest in certifications by the end of the 4th month by 60%.

Experiment: Creating 1 daily progress report allows you to have enough material to present in weekly meetings with CEOs.

[Mirek]

Questions: What is the most productive time of a day and maybe there is even a specific day in a week to get most of a team meeting that would fully engage everyone?

Hypothesis: Using Confluence before the meeting might improve productivity on a meetings no matter which time of day or day it is.

Prediction: If we use Confluence every day to collaborate on the specific topic earlier offline, everyone would be joining the meeting more prepared and would be ready for good discussion no matter which part of the day or specific day itself it is. 

Experiment: Few days before the meeting create a Confluence page and ask people to collaborate on it

[Marjorie]

Question: Does using a collaboration tool (Confluence) for requirements will reduce our meetings?

Hypothesis:  If we use Confluence to elicit our initial requirements we can reduce our meetings by 25%

Prediction: If my team reduces our meetings by 25%, then we can focus on delivering the product faster.

Experiment: Build collaboration pages for the product requirements so that stakeholders can look up the agenda, questions and be prepared so that meetings are reduced by 25. Test pages for a specific bot throughout the requirements gathering phase.

[Suvradip Paul]

Question: Is it a good practice to take and circulate meeting notes during the meeting(as part of meeting) or is it a better approach to circulate after the meeting is over ? 

Hypothesis: We can use Confluence and create a place holder before the meeting with the date and relevant agenda. Followed by, we can draft the meeting notes and action items in that template and assign action items tagging relevant people. Now if the agenda, meeting notes and action items are limited can be easily managed with in meeting duration then the confluence placeholder ca be published during the meeting else it should be done with in a short interval and preferably the same day. 

Prediction: We can buildup a good habit of capturing agenda, meeting notes and sharing action items using confluence and circulating the meeting notes depending on the meeting duration and utilising the meeting slot most effectively.

Experiment: Creating pages for capturing agenda and drafting meeting notes and action items tagging people and sharing that within meeting or outside meeting depending on meeting duration which significantly improves team collaboration by 15-20 % and effective time management by 10% on overall team capacity.

[Kishan Sharma]

Question - How do we create single source of truth for better collaboration with cross functional teams ?

Hypothesis - Considering the complexity of the project, select the right collaboration tool and create a dashboard in a shared space where cross-functional teams can visualize the work in progress, check status, set goals - deadlines and assign them to appropriate teams for actions. 

Prediction - If we create a central dashboard which is accessible to all cross functional teams then there will be improved collaboration where teams can visualize the priorities, build consensus on objectives, remove bottlenecks and execute tasks in order to make progress towards project goal.

Experiment - Create a dashboard on confluence and grant required access to cross functional teams to check the progress and status of tasks assigned to them. The dashboard should also be able to fetch individual projects status (eg: via page properties report macro ) so that it is available to all teams at a single location.

[Svenja Lorenzen]

❓ Question: To what extent does using the comment function/inline-comment function on a page reduce communication/collusion in chats.

💭 Hypothesis: In teams that use the comment function/inline-comment function on a page, fewer Slack/Teams messages are written.

🔮 Prediction: A team that is regularly reminded to record their communication/questions in the form of comments/inline comments, will have fewer Teams/Slack messages sent.

🧪 Experiment: Create a confluence page that describes how you would like to collaborate. Communicate this across your team. Write down that the comments and inline-comments should be used as often as possible. Whenever a Teams/Slack message is sent with a question about a Confluence page, the person attention needs to drawn to the collaboration rules. Over time this should significantly improves team collaboration by 25 % and reduce messages on Teams/Slack by 15%.
It may even increase your time management by 5% because you won't need to answer same question twice.