Organisations of any size can have a purpose, vision and/or strategy which includes initiatives to increase efficiency through collaboration; internally and externally. Collaboration within the organisation through high functioning teams who understand the organisation goals. Collaboration externally by working with customers to understand their needs and provide solutions that deliver the desired outcome with the minimum amount of time and effort expended by members of the organisation.

Tools are constantly being developed to help organisations with their internal collaboration. I quite often see adverts online for collaboration tools that promises to bring all of the work an individual and their team are doing into one easy to use, colourful place. The sales pitch for the products generally extends beyond this to something that is different to anything seen before, easy to set up and use that allow for planning, tracking and reporting on work in an easy and revolutionary way.

This got me thinking about what “non-tool-related” things an organisation would need to consider before implementing an all encompassing collaboration tool. Assuming the tools themselves will work as expected; put all your data in, move it around and create reports. What things should also be considered before an organisation could see a measurable increase in efficiency and delivery through the introduction of one these tools?

Set Up

The tools themselves may be quite easy to set up; access, adding users deciding on the colours etc. So assuming the tools are similar in this aspect, one obstacle is the thing that most people building IT systems have a problem with…naming stuff. The larger the organisation the more difficult this could become as there may be different areas that do similar work, calling similar tasks and processes by the same name. The naming needs to be descriptive, meaningful and relevant for now and the future. Analysis paralysis may set in if too many options are given or naming by committee is introduced.

Mindset Shift

How do you get people to start using the new tool? If existing tools are still around (email, chat programs, shared files etc) people may automatically turn to them if they are getting a response from using them. Just turning off other tools won’t always be the answer. Collaboration tools only work if everyone is using them. Gamification, incentives and recognising the use of the tool may encourage users to get onboard.

Allowing for people being people…

At the end of the day people have different working styles, personalities and priorities. Getting the work done may be a lot more important to the person doing the work, than updating their status in a collaboration tool. Project Managers and those reporting on the work may prefer quick updates be done in the collaboration tool, rather than one update at the end of a piece of work. Finding a balance between work driving the tool use and the tool driving the work is important to make sure people can still get what they need when they need it.

Either you got it or you don’t…

It may be a bold statement and one based on my own opinions, however collaboration tools work best for people who are already somewhat efficient, organised and willing to share. If you are already in the habit of updating your teams on progress, introducing a new tool to do this shouldn’t be a problem. It’s the people who don’t do this already that will be harder to convince. The right messages need to be given to people to let them know this isn’t something extra that is being asked of them, it’s now the way the organisation works. What are the right messages to get people onboard?

Context Shifting

While having everything in one place may seem like a great idea, constant notifications from tools can be distracting for people working on complex problems. Constant interruptions can lead users to becoming agitated with the system, and moving away from using it. Limiting the number of notifications could work, or encouraging people to use the dashboards which offer a summary of everything that has happened, so they can catch up when they want to.

Feedback and Change

Having the usage of the Collaboration product open for feedback is a great way to foster ownership in a product. Making changes as a result of the feedback is an even better way to foster ownership in a product.

These are just my thoughts on trying to gain efficiency through collaboration tools. I would love to hear from anyone who has had experience with moving to a single tool…was the team more efficient? Was it hard to get everyone using it? Does it make the team work better together?