Collaboration: Just how many cooks in the kitchen is too many? - Lions Unauthorized
We’re all familiar with some form of the term “Too many chefs spoil the soup” It refers to the concept that a group of individuals working on a project can self-create obstacles to completion and produce a suboptimal result. It plays out often in the content creation process. Whether it’s a task as big as a website refresh or something as routine as writing a blog or published article, the kitchen can get crowded in a hurry. But how many chefs is too many?
It depends. If two people are trying to lead the project, then two chefs would be one more than ideal. Many content projects in the tech space involve a large, diverse group of collaborators to succeed. They require product expertise, an eye on SEO, persistent focus on brand and messaging, as well as C-suite vision. It’s often the equivalent of an Iron Chef, Cake Boss, Barefoot Contessa, and BBQ Pitmaster working together on a single dish.
As B2B content creators, we’ve often found ourselves in such an overcrowded kitchen with the fate of a project hanging in the balance. Here are a few ways we’ve been able to help clients keep the kitchen humming and create regal cuisine instead of a steaming lump of Manwich.
Can of original style Manwich photographed by the author on shelf at Winco Foods in Beaverton, Oregon on June 23rd, 2023.
Identify the Top Chef
The leader of a content project often lands in the role organically and without formal designation, and that person isn’t always the marketing director or the product marketing lead. In fact, they often are not. From our experience, a project’s leader is usually the individual in the marketing arena tasked with publishing content in a timely manner.
It can be anyone on the team, really. We’ve found that smooth projects have a “go to” someone who coordinates subject matter experts, musters the appropriate supporting materials, coordinates reviews, and works closely with the content creators to ensure everyone is aligned on the definition of success.
Cooking COmpetition Judges are not chefs.
Group efforts produce a lot of opinions about the output, often from people swooping in from outside of the kitchen, and not everyone can or should have veto power. We find that it pays to identify the persons who pass out the blue ribbons early. That way they can be more involved in the project and their voices heard — helping to ensure they are wowed by the final dish.
Judges will no longer tolerate an orderly, single file line.
In the olden days, roughly 2015, we passed docs around from reviewer to reviewer using something called email. It was the digital equivalent of passing the plate of ribs from one judge to the next — clunky, time consuming, and cumbersome. In some ways it was very effective. Version control was easily maintained. Reviewers were engaged in the order desired by the project leader, and the process was predictable. But by the time the content draft or plate with the last baby back rib reached the final judge, they were both likely influenced by the opinions of the earlier reviewers – and holding a cold piece that we would all have loved to see published long ago.
That process also offered little in the way of interactive collaboration about the content under review. Reviewers added their notes and passed the asset along with a used bib. Now, after a relatively short period of transition, it seems almost all reviews happen via the shared doc, like all the judges descending on a plate of pulled pork with fork in hand. While this promotes the sharing of ideas and can lead to innovation, there is greater risk of Manwich.
Judges can end up grabbing the entry while the chef is still saucing the rib. Without guardrails, one chef reacts to a wincing judge and yells “More meat!” just as another tosses in paprika while yet another adds brown sugar. And before you know it, your next blog, article submission, white paper, or infographic becomes a pungent bowl filled with a meat-like substance…
Before you know it, your next blog, article submission, white paper, or infographic becomes a pungent bowl filled with a meat-like substance…
By Flickr user: AZAdam https://www.flickr.com/photos/azadam/73390673/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9433361
This can be avoided, however. It requires the content creators — with a big assist from the project leader — to operate as a ringleader by identifying all reviewers before reviews begin, defining basic rules of engagement, emphasizing a timeline for review completion, confirming when all reviews are complete, and ensuring all feedback is addressed.
Name the judges: It’s important to only share the doc with those tasked with performing reviews. We have discovered that providing access to others for informational purposes can be disruptive while the draft is still in process.
Set rules of engagement: Feedback should be actionable, clear, and directed towards a specific individual for resolution. If feedback is not actionable, we need to easily get clarification from that reviewer.
Define the timeline: The deadline for reviews is a function of the target completion date, so make all reviewers aware of when reviews must be completed. If specific individuals need to review before or after the rest of the group provides feedback, provide them with appropriate individual due dates and see if you need to adjust the group completion timeline accordingly.
Confirm reviews are complete: In the world of shared docs like Google Drive, Reviewers sometimes don’t complete their work in a single sitting, so it’s incumbent upon the primary content creator and the project leader to wave a brightly colored flag and confirm that all reviews are complete before moving to address them in a new version of the asset.
Ensure all feedback is addressed: Making sure all reviewer feedback is addressed can be more work than it seems on the surface, especially for content with both written and visual elements. Tools like PowerPoint and Adobe are especially challenging, as their basic review functions have failed to evolve – much like the products themselves! We recommend deploying a separate change tracking document, especially for larger or more complex assets, to ensure every morsel of reviewer input is addressed to their specifications. It seems onerous at first, but man has it made our lives easier. Have you ever had to verify that 20 different comments on a PDF are accounted for?
Open-ended questions can open a can of Manwich toot sweet.
We can’t overemphasize the importance of feedback being actionable. A shared document is not Slack or Asana or Trello. While it’s important to continue collaborating throughout the content creation process, feedback in the form of open-ended questions will at the very least delay completion and carry the potential to create extra work for all involved. Encourage reviewers to state their preference directly.
Comments that start with “What about…?” or “What if…?” or “Should we…?” can be great outside of the document. Inviting discussion or debate is fantastic if the conversation can be resolved in the proper forum and delivered in the document as actionable instruction for the content creators.
All of these best practices may seem intuitive, but the process can derail if the creative team loses focus on maintaining it. Sound process will keep any number of chefs on the same recipe page, helping to ensure smooth creation of effective content.
