We all know that by unlocking the collective intelligence of a group we come up with a superior product. Yet, how come when you approach your superiors about acquiring software to help get the most out of your team’s collaborative efforts you’re almost always routinely shot down. Today, we’re going to change that by discussing three solid benefits you and your team will witness first hand when you implement collaboration software.
Less Talk, More Work
How much time do you waste on an average day sifting through status emails, or deleting those unnecessary ones where someone decided to “Reply All”? Now, think of having that same conversation in one centralized place instead of via email. Collaboration software does just that. These tools allow all members to subscribe to only the conversations or projects that they are assigned eliminating some of those pesky email strings flooding your inbox – you know the ones where you have nothing to add and are a little confused as to why you’re on the sting to begin with.
So, instead of receiving a million emails regarding the SOW from your design agency you receive a real-time feed of the conversation as its developing from within the platform. This not only helps to streamline the conversation, but also allows others who you may omit from an email string to see you questions and present meaningful answers helping you get back to accomplishing your tasks faster.
All Your Info in One Place
We’ve all been in this situation before: you’ve been working with a team full of remote members. You have routine conference calls, but most of the internal communication is done via email. One day you’re asked to find a document and you can’t. It’s lost in the sea of emails sent in and out of your inbox. Sound a bit familiar?
One of the many benefits of collaboration software to an individual’s workflow is the fact that they are designed to keep all your information in one place. This helps speed up employees’ workflow because they are no longer having to waste time opening up emails and trying to find attachments, or sending new email requests to tem members asking for that doc or spreadsheet that they can’t seem to find. By utilizing a central repository, it makes it so much easier for team members to find and follow up on that one comment your boss wrote a few weeks ago about the new creative direction he wants the campaign to take.
Superior Organization
Despite their best efforts some people can’t seem to stay organized even if their life depended on it. You know the type; they unknowingly let their inbox fill up and can’t ever seem to find what they need without having to spend five plus minutes searching for it. One of the great benefits of using collaboration tools is that they bundle document storage. Besides the benefit of storing all of your team’s important documents in one centralized, place having a document repository helps with organization. Documents end up naturally being organized by topic. Again this helps cut down on time spent search for documents and enables teams to spend more time focus on tacking their goals.
Everyone wants to collaborate better. As I’ve talked about before a lot of the battle comes from selecting the right tool for the job. However, sometimes if you’re unable to vocalize the hard benefits getting the necessary buy in to implement collaboration tools can be a bit Sisyphean. I hope that the three benefits I’ve outlined can help get you the buy in needed.