HOW TO IMPROVE TEAM COLLABORATION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

With the advent of technology, many teams are virtual, and that increases the need for effective collaboration. Since team members in a virtual setting often consist of many individuals in different time zones, the ability to collaborate effectively as a team is one of the necessary skills for project success.

In project management, collaboration is the bringing together of a team from different departments, offices, companies, and countries to complete a project. A team is a group of people with similar skills who work together with one person making critical decisions. A working team varies in forms from cross-functional teams to self-managed teams, and virtual organizations. Merely putting a team together doesn’t directly translate to effective collaboration; this is why teamwork and collaboration have notable differences. Collaboration brings people with different skills and experiences together to solve a problem or work on a project. In teams where collaborative work is practiced, everyone is united behind a common goal, and authority is shared.

Collaboration is fast becoming a buzzword in project management, and the reason is not far-fetched; In the fast-paced global economy, organizations need cross-functional teams to satisfy client needs and remain agile. Secondly, remote working is growing at an alarming rate, and project managers are required to manage teams who work in remote areas, possibly at different time zones. These can only be achieved if the managers adopt effective project management and collaborative tools. The needs of remote working and organizations are met by the management and collaboration tools available. Collaboration is a part of the digital transformation affecting project management, and these tools make the process easier. Teams are now able to chat, assign work, automate tasks using workflows, share and co-edit documents, create reports, and do much more at any time from anywhere in the world. Practical online collaboration tools, like Planless, can help any organization increase efficiency and improve project outcomes

Effective collaboration in project management transforms the old command and control structure to a more involving structure –therefore, ‘You’ll do what I tell you’’ – morphs into “Let’s work together to get this done.’’ Since team collaboration is of grave essence in modern project management, ineffective cooperation, or the lack of cooperation can dent project output. Poor collaboration affects every stage of the project negatively – from the ideation stage to communication, stakeholder engagement, visibility, reporting, and feedback. A 2014 Chaos report found that 33% of projects failed due to a lack of involvement from the whole team. In a similar study carried out by Salesforce, 86% of respondents noted a lack of collaboration as the root of failures in the workplace.

HOW TO TAKE COLLABORATION A NOTCH HIGHER IN YOUR TEAM

Now that we have established how essential collaboration is to a successful project, let us take a look at how you can use this knowledge to improve on your team’s collaboration. Here are a few tips for setting you on the right track:

Know The Team: with the growth and adoption of virtual teams, an entire project may be completed without physical contact between team members. The key to achieving this feat is proper and effective communication. Initiating a social conversation outside of work in a channel can help lighten up work. A project manager could also put out video or voice calls to team members to further create a close-knit team. Connecting with teammates on a personal level to foster collaboration beyond task commitment.

Use The Appropriate Tool: including the right project management solution tool into the mix can make a huge difference. It is imperative to find a tool that aligns with the ideals of your organization. When considering the tools that best suits you, it is essential to look out for how the platform caters for communication, document sharing, and revisions. Platforms with a sophisticated collaboration tool that is difficult to navigate may be doing the opposite of improving your project as they may break down communication for the team. The right tool should also update changes in real-time so that the organization does not work with outdated information.

Planless, a project management software, provides teams with one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-use collaboration tools available in the market. With Planless, team members can share documents, emails, instant messages, and other forms of communication, connecting unstructured conversations with structured work that gives a truly holistic view of the ideas being exchanged and the work being done.

Document It: modern-day project management is plagued with keeping or storing of information in different places, such as cloud storage, drive or personal computers, and emails. This makes it challenging to ensure your entire team is working with the latest information. Managing multiple versions of documents may be tasking even for an organized project manager. To improve collaboration, it is vital to find one place to store work-related documents. Doing this gives the team immediate access to resources without having to search through too many tools. Planless integrates with popular cloud-based storage tools like Google Docs, allowing your team to use its recognized workflows to create and revise documents.

Work and Talk at The same time: Having a separate channel for communication and actual work is one of the significant obstacles to collaboration. For instance, a message sent to an email inbox is only useful to recipients of the email. If a team member(s) is not on that list, that person automatically misses out on that information. Finding a tool right where work is done is essential to collaboration. With this project management solution, team members can attach texts to a task, ensuring that everyone is aware of significant changes in the course of the project.

Alert The Team Whenever Changes Are Made: changes are an inevitable part of a project. As a project manager, the onus is on you to equip your team with a tool that enables you to make an update to ongoing tasks and alert your teammates immediately.

As project management becomes more decentralized, collaboration tools will increase in importance. Planless offers a modern-day project management solution for online collaboration between teams to keep them connected, informed, and engaged.