Partnerships begin at various times and for various reasons. Some form organically as relationships progress, while others are established for specific reasons.
The Working Together: Collaborative Practices and Tools program suggests a four stage process for working on developing and maintaining partnerships. These four stages are: Connect: identifying your motivation and needs, capacity, participation and partnership type; Begin: determine your partnership governance, vision/mission, agreements and strategic plan; Implementation: develop working groups, action plans and determine boundary crossers and communication; and, finally, Monitor: evaluate the progress, as well as develop reports, future plans and growth.
STAGE 1: CONNECT
Before bringing potential partners to the table, the initiators are encouraged to reflect on the nature of their services, their mandate and their organizational visions. Knowing your own organization’s strengths and weaknesses prior to building partnerships will help identify some of the key characteristics you will be looking for in a partner. Once you are ready to build new partnerships, the steps recommend include:
- Identify the need for a partnership through a preliminary needs assessment.
- Set up a preliminary meeting partner(s) with a facilitator who can act with impartiality.
- Determine the shared need for the partnership to address a common cause, problems or aspirations of the organizations.
- Work with the facilitator to set the agenda and decide on collaborative processes that will work for the group.
- Keep records of each meeting with action items and names of those responsible.
GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR STAGE 1:
- Motivations and needs: Does our organization have the motivation and shared interest to commit to a partnership? Are partners being brought together willingly or through external pressure?
- Capacity: Do we have the resources and time to partner? Do we understand one another’s priorities, goals and culture? Do we care?
- Participation: Are our organizations already networking or cooperating? What other organizations might be a good fit?
- Partnership Type: What is our proposed common cause, purpose or goal? What are the problems we need to solve? How should we partner to address our common cause?
- Supporters: Who are the champions of the potential partnership? Who are the boundary crossers: those who have knowledge of both organizations?
- Challenges: What are the challenges or barriers that would inhibit organization or stakeholder participation? How will the team deal with external pressures? How do we ensure work is completed between meetings?
STAGE 2: BEGIN
Once the participants have agree to partner, the official planning can begin. During this stage the partners are encouraged to develop a governance structure, vision and goals for the partnerships. Different organization often have very different work styles and cultures, so building a shared understanding of how the partnership will operate is important. It is during this time, that the partnership will develop relationship, trust and understanding of their common cause. Steps include:
- Confirm the organizations and participants that will form the planning team. Choose a chair and set the agenda.
- Development of structure and plans: mission, vision and guiding principles, agreement, organizational structure and roles, strategic plan, communication plan and financial plan.
- Reach a consensus on implementation – Stage 3.
GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR STAGE 2:
- Shared vision: What is the partnership’s preferred future? Purpose? Shared beliefs? How will they make decisions collaboratively to support each other?
- Agreements: How will the terms of reference, memorandum of understanding or partnership agreement or joint-venture agreement be written? What is the governance structure? What will operational roles and responsibilities be? How will conflict be resolved? How will members be held accountable?
- Strategic Thinking and Planning: How do we achieve our vision? What are the outcomes/? What goals will help us achieve our outcomes? What strategies should we employ? Are our goals SMART (specific, measurable, aggressive/attainable, realistic and timely)? And how do we measure our progress?
STAGE 3: IMPLEMENTATION
This stage is all about taking action. At this point the partnership will be ready to operationalize the plans. Attention to the governance structure is critical. It will help guide the work for the partnership, particularly if the work has been delegated to different working groups and is going on at different locations and at different times. During this stage, a project manager may be required to keep the different work groups on track towards meeting shared goals and deliverables.
- Consider collaborative practices and tools to keep ideas flowing and everyone on track with the shared vision.
- Implement the plan, deal with the program or project development, finance, administration and communications. If a larger partnership, each area can be chaired by individuals who meet on a regular basis.
- Review work completed and revisit decisions along the way. Address challenges and opportunities.
- Keep communication between all areas of the partnership. Address conflict and build trust.
- Affirm membership in the partnership and be ready to accept and bring new members up to speed.
GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR STAGE 3:
- Working groups: How do we manage the work? How do we implement our governance and operational structure, roles and responsibilities?
- Action plans: How do we achieve our outcomes? How do we identify tasks, resources, timelines, people responsible, and other participants?
- Boundary crossing: How do we identify and support those that have connections at all levels, or between both, of the organizations?
- Communication: How do we ensure effective communication? How do we manage conflict and build trust? How do we maintain momentum? How do we celebrate the launch and implementation?
STAGE 4: MONITOR
In this stage, the partnership will evaluate its progress. Accountability practices ensure the partnership is fulfilling its goals and is viable and sustainable. Monitoring should be done at each stage as partners assess the relationships, tasks and accomplishments. Both the success of the projects or programs and the status of the partnership must be evaluated. Steps in this stage include:
- Plan for formative and summative evaluation.
- Establish a monitoring working group that deal specifically with evaluation in conjunction with strategic planning.
- Put evaluation on the agenda.
- Consider the appropriate partnership data and tools. Includes a balance of qualitative and quantitate measures. Determine if a benchmark or baseline data is needed as a starting point.
GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR STAGE 4:
- Reporting on the partnership: What are the project outcomes? How can we report on our SMART goals and objectives? Were measurement tools appropriate?
- Evaluating the partnership: How effectively did our protocols, policies, procedure and strategies support the vision, outcomes and goals of the partnerships? Was there a benefit to the partnership? Did the partnership bring resources to the project? What were the difficulties in partnering? Has the partnership evolved over time? Do all stakeholders easily understand the plans, reports and other communications?
- Future planning: As a result of the formative and summative evaluations, what modifications or refinements did we make to improve partnership policies, procedures, outcomes, goals, and strategies during the years and for future planning?
- Continuation: Do we continue this partnership in the future? What are the pros and cons?
