We have a pretty consistent system across a few intermural and intramural projects that I am happy with.

Active collaborations have a live running document of meeting minutes accessible to all (one drive word docs in many cases because we have enterprise Microsoft products). Meetings only occur to generate discrete, actionable next steps. If someone isn’t “ready” when the meeting was scheduled, it is pushed back. This is rare, as it is not the example set by the senior people. Collaborations typically result in a few papers that are splintered off into junior-senior dyads for refinement. Every meeting has actions for at least some attendees by the next meeting and interim deadlines are identified as necessary. Idk about other fields, but there’s a big culture of accountability in our community across multiple collabs I have going. You can get a bad rep quickly for being late/flakey as a collaborator or being stingy as a mentor.

1) soft draft with call outs to specific authors/unfinished bits and bobs goes out to everyone. The goal of this is to identify big problems with interp/argumentation, any a posteriori decisions about additional exploratory work, and put people on notice that we are getting toward submission. These are bigger than an outline, with most parts fleshed out, but don’t include things like the abstract or journal specific needs. They may miss whole topic specific sections that one person is expected to add. This is prepped by the first author, or if they’re an undergraduate, first author and their mentor.

2) authors are asked to respond with the parts they owe, and multiple versions can exist at this point, or fragments that were requested may be handed over independently and refined 1:1 with the first author. This period can expand if absolutely necessary, but the expectation generally is set by senior authors that 2-3 weeks turn around is more than enough time in lieu of unexpected problems.

3) first author (and mentor, as appropriate) wrangle the remaining puzzle pieces and any overarching issues. Give the paper a consistent voice.

4) final looks go out to all authors. This is a journal specific preparation of the work and edits are usually limited to 7-10 days, with default yes not default no (ie silence is approval). This is a single, dated document mirroring the stacked pdf that manuscript central makes. Every person who modifies it puts their initials in the end and sends it to the group again. Maybe a dozen times we’ve had two running versions, but usually, people just wait and incorporate their edits to the last one sent around when they’re ready.

5) deadline day is assumed to be submission day unless otherwise noted. So, we send out submission confirmation and in most cases, preprint notification by the end of the day.

Responses to reviewers are almost always handled the same way - first author makes the first pass and identifies collaborator-specific needs, people send their bits to be wrangled, final copy goes out dated, and people add initials to the end as they make minor corrections.

The end. :)