collaboration

How to Successfully Collaborate With Your Coworkers From a Distance

By in Communication Tags: , , ,

Video_Conference_Call

When you’re working from home, teamwork is essential. In order to get things done, you need to be able to communicate with your coworkers, share ideas, make group decisions, and get their input and assistance.

But collaborating with your coworkers when everyone is working remotely can be difficult. It was simple when everyone could just gather together in a room and discuss a project together. But trying to do something similar on a video conference call can be more challenging. On a conference call, it’s easier to be distracted and get off track. And sometimes, it’s harder to be heard.

Luckily, there are things you can do to make these types of collaborative sessions more productive and effective. Author Ximena Vengoechea suggests that you do the following:

  • Keep it focused – Video conference calls can be very tiring and it’s easy for participants to get distracted. So it’s important to keep them focused. This can be done by controlling the scope, cutting down on the number of participants, and making sure the meeting doesn’t run long.
    • Control the scope of the meeting. Think about the purpose of the meeting. What do you hope to accomplish? Make sure you have a clear understanding of what needs to be discussed and try to keep the other participants focused on that topic.
    • Cut down on the number of participants. Only include people who are really essential to the project. If too many people are in the meeting, they may have difficulty voicing their opinions and there’s more likely to be confusion and misunderstandings.
    • Make sure the meeting doesn’t run long. Meetings should be no longer than one hour. If you are unable to accomplish what you wanted to within that hour, schedule a follow-up meeting.
  • Make sure your meeting participants are prepared – Before the meeting, make sure to explain the purpose of the meeting and what you hope to accomplish. If meeting participants need to review certain documents or materials before the meeting, make sure to tell them that this is required, and make sure those materials are easily accessible.
  • Keep people engaged – During the meeting, stick to your agenda, try to prevent the conversation from veering off course, and try to keep things moving along. Make the meeting interactive by asking people questions, or asking them to use the tools in your video conferencing software to express their opinions. You may also want to consider enlisting one or two people to help you keep the conversation going if things seem to lag. And keep people’s minds from wandering by giving them jobs. For instance, you could ask one person to take notes, and another person to watch the time.
  • Use technology to capture people’s ideas – If you were brainstorming with a group of people and you were all in the same room, you would probably write down their ideas on a whiteboard or on stickie notes. You should do the same thing in your video conference meeting (for instance, by using a virtual whiteboard). This will help participants to get creative, generate more ideas, and notice trends and connections.
  • Wrap things up – At the end of the meeting, recap what was discussed and list any important decisions that were made. You want to ensure that every participant comes away with the same understanding of what happened during the meeting. Talk about next steps, and identify the people who will be responsible for completing follow-up work. Ask participants to email you with any thoughts or ideas that they didn’t have the opportunity to share. And finally, thank them for their time and effort.

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Vengoechea, X. (n.d.). 7 tips for running a successful team brainstorm – even when everyone’s remote. The Muse. Retrieved from: https://www.themuse.com/advice/remote-brainstorm-tips

The High Cost of Email

By in Communication Tags: , , ,

Email

Ask almost any employee what the most expensive software is for a university. I think most people would respond by talking about our financial system, SAP. I disagree. I think email is where we spend the most money by far, but I wonder whether it’s where we derive the most value.

Roll the clock back about fifty years or so, and I think most people would agree that the typewriter was the most important piece of machinery in any office. Then I imagine a new employee’s reaction if a manager in the 1970s told the employee that a major responsibility of a new job was to use the typewriter to write letters to people in the same office and to respond to any letters a colleague happened to send. The new employee would probably decide that the office was crazy and walk off the job on the very first day!

As absurd as that situation sounds, we sometimes treat our computers in exactly this way. We spend large amounts of time either writing emails to one another or responding, often to the person sitting at a desk within shouting distance. It sometimes seems as if this daily correspondence with our colleagues has become a major part of our jobs — particularly if we think about the time we spend on these activities.

A 2012 report by McKinsey & Company suggests that 28 hours is the amount of time spent each week writing emails, searching for information, and collaborating internally. The report goes on to say that the solution to the problem is to make greater use of social technology and networks: “we find that the use of social networks to improve communication within and across enterprises could contribute two-thirds of the $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value that we estimate can be created across the four commercial sectors [consumer packaged goods, consumer financial services, professional services, and advanced manufacturing] we study.” I am not certain that I agree with the conclusion, but it does seem as if there’s a better way. Personally, if I need to tell a colleague something, I am inclined to get off my chair and walk over and tell the person. People might argue that that is also a costly and time-consuming way of doing business. But I believe that:

  • It’s more friendly and provides the opportunity to engage with an employee in a meaningful way.
  • It’s more efficient. A human conversation is like parallel processing. Responses are instant and conclusions are more collaborative.
  • People don’t get offended as often because you have the opportunity to clear up misunderstandings on the spot.
  • It’s a lot more fun!

The magazine, Inc, published an infographic collected by a company called Contatta. Contatta has a product that claims to enable people to move toward greater collaboration than traditional email offers. Even when you consider that there must be a strong measure of self-interest behind Contatta’s data, it is nevertheless amazing. The assumption is that we spend 13 hours a week on email. This amounts to 637 hours per person a year, over $15,000 per employee per year, or almost $1.8 trillion for the whole country.

That number is:

  • Enough to hand out $5,637 to every single person in the country
  • More than 13.4 times the wealth of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett combined
  • About the same as the GDP of every county in Africa
  • Enough to buy everyone in Austin, Texas, a $1.7 million Bugatti Veyron

Whether you believe these numbers or not, we can all agree that the cost of email is huge. The question is whether it is money well spent. I suspect that email is a luxury that we sometimes don’t like. And nor can we afford it!

Tell us what you think!

 

Decisions by Committee Don’t Always Yield the Best Results

By in University Culture Tags: , , ,

CollaborationParadoxOscarRamosOrozco

We often approach a new project with a group brainstorming session, an opportunity to pool our team members to chart a common trajectory towards completion. Studies show, however, that such collaboration can be detrimental to the best outcome. This article by renowned author, Ron Friedman, Ph.D., outlines the potential pitfalls of collaborations: they may breed false confidence, introduce pressures to conform, and promote laziness. It will help you to discover the art of successful collaborations. Illustration by Oscar Ramos Orozco.