- We've talked a little bit about the what in collaboration.
Now let's talk about the why.
Why collaborate?
Why is it going to make a difference in business?
Well, reason number one: efficiency.
Having tools and processes that improve
the ability to collaborate on work
can have a big effect on the bottom line.
Being able to easily share and discuss work removes
roadblocks that can slow a project down.
Here's a real easy way to see this.
Consider working on a project.
In the old ways of working, most communication about
the project would be via email.
If we were lucky, there was a distribution list
that we could use, but often that wasn't current,
as new people joined the team and others left.
There was also probably a shared drive for documentation,
but with that same problem.
As the team changed, access could get problematic.
If you needed to go back and find something,
you'd have to go back through old email messages
or have to dig through shared drives looking for it.
Neither had very good search capabilities,
so you'd have to do a lot of manual sifting.
Now, let's look at a team
that's working in a modern workplace.
For starters, they're using a collaborative community based
tool like Yammer or Slack that
allows for quick conversations
and group chats in a public area so that they're visible
to everyone without having to to troll through emails.
Also, since they can attach documents and files
to the conversations, no one has to wade through multiple
levels of shared drives to find things,
and the files are co-editable so no one has to download,
edit, and re-upload a new version of the file.
There's only one file,
and it's always the most current version.
Now, add in the fact that if you need to speak to someone
you can look online and see what their status
and availability is instantly.
How much time do you think this would save you?
Well, I know an answer just from personal experience.
This can provide an absolutely tremendous
amount of saved time, like hours a day.
We'll talk about some techniques and best practices later,
but I guarantee you that this can work and work well.