A good form is like a good recipe. Too little information, and the results are going to be half baked. Too much, and the cook’s going to be overwhelmed with all the steps, get frustrated, and put the turkey in the toaster. The trick is asking for just the right amount of information while presenting it as simply as possible.

In our recent work on the Australian Government’s My Aged Care website, a lot of thought went into how we could find this balance with the Apply online feature. Fourteen weeks, 12 prototypes, multiple hospital and call centre visits, and countless user testing sessions later, we found the winning recipe.

Without the right underlying values, you can’t collaborate

Whenever we talk about collaboration we tend to talk about quite specific actions:

• Let’s put all these people in one room!
• Let’s hold regular knowledge sharing!  
• Let’s put this information online so everyone can use it!
• Let’s create team incentives!

Another audience question from our Open Studio - Collaborating for success was in relation to business as usual during the pandemic. While it wasn't always smooth sailing, we managed to learn a lot about our ways of working -- what worked, what didn't and what could be enhanced with some adjustments. 

Q: “I'd love to get some insight into how you've navigated collaborating during a COVID (remote working) world. Do you have any go-to digital tools for this? Did you find that you can emulate the experience in the same way as collaboration with tangible tools and methods?”

Following on from our latest article “When do you start collaborating”, this next one answers another question asked during our Open Studio - Collaborating for success. 

Q: “How do you manage collaboration among disparate skill levels and work styles, both at individual and interdepartmental or inter-institutional levels?”

We recently hosted an Open Studio panel discussion about effective collaboration, and received a few audience questions on the topic which were both interesting and chunky. While the team touched on them in the conversation, we had a lot more to say so we've turned our answers into a series of blog posts - here's the first one.