Why cross-collaboration is your team's creative superpower

The digital landscape is rapidly changing, and the tools and means of professional and creative execution are changing along with it. This means creatives need to lean on the right collaborative tools, while also becoming stronger collaborators on their own, not using these tools as a crutch.

There are many benefits to strengthening your team’s collaborative muscles. For example, you likely work with people who have a diverse range of talents and skills, with expertise spanning specialties like design, writing and development. It’s important to make sure everyone can bring their best ideas to the table. Cross-collaboration allows everyone to make surprising connections, see new possibilities and create highly innovative work.

That’s what we do at Wix and Wix Studio, and I can say from experience, as the head of Wix’s Motion Studio department, that there’s an art to working on highly complex creative teams. There are so many advantages to committing to effective collaboration, but it also brings up important questions:

• How do you look beyond someone’s job description and at their complex skills and experience instead?
• How do you make your team feel safe enough to take big risks in brainstorms and team meetings?
• How do you initiate a workflow that fosters both organization and creative flexibility?
• How do you encourage an ongoing relationship with learning and development across disciplines?

These are indeed big questions, but there are ways you can make sure you’re getting the most innovative ideas out of those you collaborate with. This applies to your internal team and to external clients, agencies and freelancers.

We’ll share some of the ways we solve challenges through creative collaboration in our Adobe Max session on October 10th, 2023, where my colleagues, Shira Nathan, Wix Motion Studio team lead, and Sivan Fiterman, senior motion designer, will highlight some examples. We’ll also share our workflow, advice and learnings along the way. We look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime, here's a glimpse at how team members can work together to craft compelling digital stories and assets.

• Be inclusive: Kick off your projects with brainstorming sessions that gather input from every member. That means you should consider including colleagues across disciplines in relevant meetings (invite developers to content brainstorms, for example). Diverse perspectives spark fresh ideas, and the fusion of different viewpoints results in uniquely layered concepts. There’s a special magic in seeing people bounce ideas off of each other.
• Encourage fluid roles and responsibilities: In these collaborations, rigid roles often dissolve. Instead, team members assume responsibilities based on their strengths for each project phase. So, don’t be super stuck to job titles and rigid hierarchies. A more dynamic approach ensures that the best-suited individual leads in their area of expertise, and the outcome will be better for it.
• Embrace experimentation: Experimentation is key to creativity. This means you need to create an environment where people feel safe to try new things (and potentially fail). Encourage quick feedback and make adjustments in-real-time. Also important: share failures with your team as much as you share successes. It’s all part of learning — and you learn a lot from the projects that didn’t quite work the way you had hoped.
• Learn, share and grow: Speaking of learning, collaboration isn't just about the project at hand; it's also about long-term personal growth. Team members can engage in skill sharing, teaching each other aspects of their respective domains. This learning culture enriches the team's collective abilities. To achieve this, allow people to take on projects beyond the scope of their official roles if something is sparking their interest. Creativity often comes from trying something new or viewing a project from a new lens.
• Use collaborative technology: You want to make collaboration as seamless as possible, and there are a lot of tools that can support you in this mission and facilitate collaboration among multi-creatives. Cloud-based platforms, collaborative design software and digital project management tools streamline communication and enhance efficiency. Just remember that your tools should serve the process, not dictate it.

If you can’t tell already, I’m a big believer that being able to collaborate with team members across disciplines is key to creative success, as is tapping into people’s complex and varied skill-sets. We’ll share some examples with you at Adobe Max, but I hope these tips inform your work in the meantime. See you on October 10th.

This Adobe MAX 2023 post is sponsored by Wix Studio.