The ability of collaboration partners to follow through on commitments that enhance the likelihood of collaborative success
WHY IT MATTERS: When partners fulfill their promises to the collaboration, they inspire trust among each other and among external stakeholders, building confidence in the collaboration and in the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Encouraging partners to follow through on their commitments.
Intersector collaborations often require partners to work in contexts that differ from their day-to-day operating environment, which can be a challenge. If partners are unable to fulfill commitments, however, progress may stall, and confidence and commitment may wane. The collaboration can hold partners accountable for their commitments by: identifying clear expectations from each partner and establishing time lines for these expectations, ensuring all partners understand and mutually agree to these expectations and timelines (perhaps through a partnership agreement or memorandum of understanding), and consistently communicating the fulfillment of commitments among partners.
“Providing Public School Bus GPS Information to Parents in Boston”
In the winter of 2010, severe snowstorms in Boston resulted in adverse road conditions and traffic delays, leaving parents worried about their children riding home on public school buses. During the blizzards, Chris Osgood, Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM), was at the Boston Public Schools Call Center relaying the GPS locations of school buses to concerned parents. Chris and his colleagues soon realized that allowing parents and caretakers to view
this information on a smartphone or computer would be a key improvement to the system, especially in critical weather situations. A year after the precipitating snowstorm, MONUM — which pilots experiments in the areas of civic engagement, education, and improved service delivery in Boston, using cross-sector collaboration to solve issues within cities — partnered with Boston Public Schools, the GPS Provider Zonar, Code for America, and, later, Vermonster to create a free app that delivered needed information to parents in a safe and expedited way. Once it initiated the collaboration, MONUM provided critical support, such as coordinating beta testing and overseeing logistics for proposals, which alleviated some of the responsibilities faced by BPS representatives who were busy managing daily transportation issues, eventually ensuring continued collaborative success. After the first version of the app had been developed by Code for America, MONUM worked with Boston Public Schools to identify testing groups composed of BPS parents and took charge of writing proposals and providing feedback on each round of testing. After several rounds of testing, when seeking to scale the project to the entire city, MONUM managed the Request for Quotation process to find a developer to build a more robust platform. Today, “Where’s My School Bus?” provides Boston parents with real-time public school bus locations of their children, and city officials report that the app is used by parents 1,000 times a day.
“Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential” from University of Wisconsin- Cooperative Extension
Especially see the Minutes of Meeting template on p. 100, the example Collaborative Monitoring Chart on p. 101, and the example Collaborative Management and Responsibility Chart on p. 102. The first resource provides a template for meeting minutes that focuses on recording tasks, the responsible party for those tasks, and the time line. The second resource provides a template for capturing collaboration activities, including number of tasks completed on time, and could easily be adapted to allow for greater specificity in listing types of tasks or commitments completed each month. The third resource provides a template for recording partner commitments and tracking follow through. “Evaluating Collaboratives” is a comprehensive resource for evaluating multi-stakeholder processes.
“The Partnership Toolkit” from Collaboration Roundtable
Especially see Tool 11: Ensuring Accountability on pp. 58-62. This resource guides partners in processes that encourage them to take responsibility for their commitments, both as partners and as a collaborative team. It includes helpful discussion of the importance of accountability, exercises guiding partners to embed principles that encourage accountability into their partnership, and discusses options for reporting accountability. While some of the exercises are aimed at assessing the ability of the collaboration to follow through on its commitments, they could easily be adapted for individual partners, as well. “The Partnership Toolkit” is a comprehensive guide to assist organizations in building and sustaining partnerships.
The ability of collaboration partners to follow through on commitments that enhance the likelihood of collaborative success
WHY IT MATTERS: When partners fulfill their promises to the collaboration, they inspire trust among each other and among external stakeholders, building confidence in the collaboration and in the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Encouraging partners to follow through on their commitments.
Intersector collaborations often require partners to work in contexts that differ from their day-to-day operating environment, which can be a challenge. If partners are unable to fulfill commitments, however, progress may stall, and confidence and commitment may wane. The collaboration can hold partners accountable for their commitments by: identifying clear expectations from each partner and establishing time lines for these expectations, ensuring all partners understand and mutually agree to these expectations and timelines (perhaps through a partnership agreement or memorandum of understanding), and consistently communicating the fulfillment of commitments among partners.
“Providing Public School Bus GPS Information to Parents in Boston”
In the winter of 2010, severe snowstorms in Boston resulted in adverse road conditions and traffic delays, leaving parents worried about their children riding home on public school buses. During the blizzards, Chris Osgood, Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM), was at the Boston Public Schools Call Center relaying the GPS locations of school buses to concerned parents. Chris and his colleagues soon realized that allowing parents and caretakers to view
this information on a smartphone or computer would be a key improvement to the system, especially in critical weather situations. A year after the precipitating snowstorm, MONUM — which pilots experiments in the areas of civic engagement, education, and improved service delivery in Boston, using cross-sector collaboration to solve issues within cities — partnered with Boston Public Schools, the GPS Provider Zonar, Code for America, and, later, Vermonster to create a free app that delivered needed information to parents in a safe and expedited way. Once it initiated the collaboration, MONUM provided critical support, such as coordinating beta testing and overseeing logistics for proposals, which alleviated some of the responsibilities faced by BPS representatives who were busy managing daily transportation issues, eventually ensuring continued collaborative success. After the first version of the app had been developed by Code for America, MONUM worked with Boston Public Schools to identify testing groups composed of BPS parents and took charge of writing proposals and providing feedback on each round of testing. After several rounds of testing, when seeking to scale the project to the entire city, MONUM managed the Request for Quotation process to find a developer to build a more robust platform. Today, “Where’s My School Bus?” provides Boston parents with real-time public school bus locations of their children, and city officials report that the app is used by parents 1,000 times a day.
“Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential” from University of Wisconsin- Cooperative Extension
Especially see the Minutes of Meeting template on p. 100, the example Collaborative Monitoring Chart on p. 101, and the example Collaborative Management and Responsibility Chart on p. 102. The first resource provides a template for meeting minutes that focuses on recording tasks, the responsible party for those tasks, and the time line. The second resource provides a template for capturing collaboration activities, including number of tasks completed on time, and could easily be adapted to allow for greater specificity in listing types of tasks or commitments completed each month. The third resource provides a template for recording partner commitments and tracking follow through. “Evaluating Collaboratives” is a comprehensive resource for evaluating multi-stakeholder processes.
“The Partnership Toolkit” from Collaboration Roundtable
Especially see Tool 11: Ensuring Accountability on pp. 58-62. This resource guides partners in processes that encourage them to take responsibility for their commitments, both as partners and as a collaborative team. It includes helpful discussion of the importance of accountability, exercises guiding partners to embed principles that encourage accountability into their partnership, and discusses options for reporting accountability. While some of the exercises are aimed at assessing the ability of the collaboration to follow through on its commitments, they could easily be adapted for individual partners, as well. “The Partnership Toolkit” is a comprehensive guide to assist organizations in building and sustaining partnerships.