Collaboration is a journey. We guide it. Start to finish.
Whether you’re working across departments, between organizations, or both, collaboration tends to follow a recognizable arc. The stages don’t always appear in sequence, and they rarely unfold in a straight line. But each one matters.
At Covalent Society, we support groups—internal teams, multi-organization partnerships, or blended efforts—as they move through this arc with clarity and structure. For each step in this process, we provide the supporting tools, structures, and expertise needed to do the difficult work of getting people to thrive together. Some begin at the start. Others step in midway. Either way, we help bring focus to the work and keep people moving together, deliberately.
Awareness
Collaboration often begins with a realization: that the challenge at hand can’t, or shouldn’t, be addressed in isolation. For a team, this might mean surfacing gaps or misalignments across functions. For broader potential partnerships, it starts with identifying who else could see part of the problem, and whether there’s shared ground to build on. Awareness is not about offering solutions. It’s about preparing for the kind of listening and inquiry that good collaboration requires. Becoming visible to others, and being open to what they bring. Awareness includes both external scanning and internal visioning. Teams not only explore the landscape of challenges and potential partners but also clarify their own aspirations and readiness to engage. This phase ensures there's alignment between internal intent and external opportunity.
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Covalent Society supports this stage through structured reflection, early research, and exploratory outreach. In some cases, we use AI tools to support problem framing, pattern recognition, and opportunity scanning.
Alignment
When people explore working together, understanding doesn’t immediately follow. Alignment requires space to surface assumptions, compare views, and begin forming a shared understanding of the challenge and potential approaches. Alignment requires internal cohesion first. Teams must surface assumptions, understand internal dynamics, and build shared purpose before meaningful co-creation can begin externally. In teams, this phase strengthens alignment as the foundation for collaborative alignment. In partnerships, this phase is where mutual understanding is established. This phase heavily relies on design thinking methodologies, and co-creation of prototypes that partners can deploy.
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Covalent Society designs and facilitates these early moments, whether they unfold as co-creation workshops, interviews, or smaller working sessions. Sometimes we use AI to help synthesize input and spot patterns in real time. The goal is not to win an argument, but to see the value in our potential partners, and ask better questions so we can take advantage of each collaborator's expertise, together, and begin to see a path forward.
Agreement
As shared direction takes shape, partners need to make it real: What will be done? Who will do it? How will success be measured? This stage often includes decisions about roles, governance, and how the collaboration will adapt over time. Agreement establishes the governance, accountability systems, and shared commitments that enable long-term success. Partners should agree to systematic approaches to iteration and improvement at this time. It is not a one-time contract, but a living framework that evolves as relationships mature. This phase creates the scaffolding for adaptive collaboration. In more complex efforts, this may involve setting up a Secretariat—a coordinating body or backbone function that helps hold things together. That role can be formal or informal, internal or shared.
Covalent Society helps design these structures, define shared commitments, and build agreements that support—not stifle—adaptation. In cases where no one party can manage the collaboration, Covalent Society can build the management structures to move the initiative forward, together.
Deployment
Deployment is when planning shifts into action. Whether inside one organization or across many, this stage is about making sure the systems are ready—communications, staffing, budgets, and tools. Deployment activates what has been agreed—systems, roles, and infrastructure come online. Emotional dynamics and trust play a critical role here as partners begin to show up operationally. Reinforcing relational clarity and role confidence is essential.
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Covalent Society supports operational setup with a focus on clarity: who’s doing what, what tools are needed, and how progress will be tracked. The earlier work sets the vision. This stage sets the pace.
Delivery
Delivery is the long middle. It’s where the work happens, and where the collaboration gets tested. Roles evolve, timelines stretch, and new needs emerge. This is also where relationships deepen—or strain. Delivery is the long-haul phase of implementation and sustained coordination. Emotional resilience, relationship health, and the capacity to learn across organizations are essential for momentum. Relational dynamics should be revisited and supported through ongoing feedback mechanisms.
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Covalent Society provides coordination, facilitation, and governance support to help teams stay aligned, address friction early, and keep moving. When helpful, AI tools support tracking, synthesis, and knowledge capture.
Improvement
Every collaboration needs space to evolve. The improvement stage acknowledges that circumstances change—and that good systems must change with them. Calling this a stage may even be incorrect: iteration and improvement are embedded throughout the entire process. However, groups need to establish checkpoints throughout this process to reflect, iterate, and decide what to adjust, and develop cultures that expect this to happen, in conjunction with partners, over time. Sometimes it’s about improving a process. Sometimes it leads to scaling. Sometimes it’s about stopping what no longer fits.
Covalent Society supports these moments with structured reflection, adaptive planning, and the tools to move forward, together.
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