Sailing as a team: Navigating ground-breaking and collaborative qualitative research

By Sahru Keiser, Thi Tran, Tamara Restrepo, Elena Portacolone

As qualitative researchers, we usually start our research solo. We submit grants alone, recruit alone, and spend time in the field alone. We then analyze our data and publish our papers. This solitude allows for depth. But conducting qualitative research on our own does not allow us to recruit large samples or conduct multisite research. Going solo does not allow us to integrate researchers’ perspectives diverse from ours, or to have fluid conversations in languages that we do not speak. As a result, often an important step for us as qualitative researchers is to start working with project managers, field researchers, and coders in order to expand the scope, breadth, as well as the generalizability of our research.

In this post we reflect on the factors that are important for having a cohesive and supportive team of diverse researchers, building from our common experience as project managers (Sahru, Thi, and Tamara) and principal investigator (Elena) working closely together in mostly NIH-funded projects. 

Trust is the first and biggest factor. Trust builds strong relationships and strengthens commitments towards one another. Furthermore, we found that giving, building, and investing in trust fosters the development of creative, innovative, and out-of-the-box ideas that are critical in ground-breaking research. These innovative ideas also stem from the diverse background and culture of our team. 

Being supportive is the second factor. Having each other’s backs. Through trial and error, we learned to foster a culture where helping each other feel supported and heard is more important than anything else—even than the aims of the grant. We realized that a strong internal support system is the backbone that will allow us to address the aims of the grant with ease, creativity, and efficiency. Support is especially critical when working remotely and with study participants who are suffering. One way to support one another is to prioritize openly sharing our concerns so we can face them, and usually solve them, together. To foster support, we create space for team members to share their future goals. These provide opportunities for supervisors to work with each person individually within their position to help them learn and build new skills that are essential to their career advancement. Support and service often blur with one another. As the size of the team grows, it is clear that the main task of the principal investigator is to humbly serve the team by sharing her vision, actively listening, being easily available, communicating clearly, securing funding, and especially adapting the design of awarded projects to the needs of the team if needed. 

Open and clear communication is the third factor, what we on our team call “overcommunicating.” To ensure strong connections, we differentiate team operational meetings from team reflection meetings where we discuss ideas. At the end of each meeting, we summarize verbally and in writing our key decisions, and we ensure that we are on the same page. We often speak out loud about our assumptions to avoid miscommunications. We ask questions until grey zones disappear. We directly and routinely ask for concerns. Project managers also regularly check in one-on-one with researchers, sometimes with the involvement of the principal investigator. In addition, we use multiple communication tools (e.g., email, phone, WhatsApp) to stay connected.

Grounding work with fun is the last and overarching factor. It is important to recognize and honor our personal lives, our hobbies, families, and time spent recharging. Honoring this work-life balance requires recognizing that we all have lives outside our work. For example, meetings often start with highlights from our personal life to connect at a deeper level. Questions that we ask to one another are: Is anyone reading a good book? or what did you do this weekend? or how's everyone doing?

Taken all together, working as a team conducting ground-breaking research often feels like sailing on the ocean across changing waters. The more challenging and groundbreaking the research, the more we need to work together to steer the boat in the right direction—trusting, supporting, and especially enjoying the ride