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Collaborative watershed partnerships form a leading trend in contemporary water management, an expression of the recognized need to manage water as a commons. Such experiences are in line with the sustainable governance forms which Elinor Ostrom has brought to the fore. Nevertheless, the step-by-step shaping of institutional arrangements has not been much investigated in relation with the commons and can barely be apprehended by the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. In order to understand such processes better, and therefore be able to steer them better, I suggest that it is necessary to adopt a broader conception of collective action than that underpinning the IAD framework, thus enabling to apprehend it both as a competition arena and a communalization process. I then suggest the use of negotiation as a key-analysis concept, because it offers the possibility of deciphering this dual dimension of collective action, provided that it is “equipped” in order to be used as an interpretive framework. I continue by presenting this framework and implementing it in a case-study on the design of a Water Management Plan for the eastern part of the Lyon area in France.