Modern enterprises are more team-focused and collaborative in nature than ever before. This is in part thanks to the development of tools that enable immediate, robust, and effective communication and sharing of resources. The level of teamwork common in most businesses today simply wouldn’t be possible without these tools. What the discussion of the shift in the importance of teams often fails to account for, however, is the idea that the very nature of teams has changed just as much.
The vast majority of executives in mid-sized and larger enterprises know that effective communication is, without question, the most important element in enabling team collaboration. But the ease and comprehensive nature of that communication has altered what most people consider to be a team.
The New Teams
Once upon a time, a team within an organization would have been exactly that: inside the organization. This is no longer necessarily the norm.
Teams today make use of collaboration solutions that enable real-time sharing of almost any resource. They provide audio and video communication over data networks and, perhaps most importantly, user-based data access. This means that individuals with a stake in the operation of a business but who are not actually employed by that business can be given access to very specific data elements and can therefore be included in teams where collaboration would have been historically impossible.
Modern teams often include suppliers, partners, outside specialists, experts, and occasionally even customers.
Some Things Never Change
Teams may have a different makeup these days, and the ways in which they work might have changed, but many of the things businesses need to do to enable effective teamwork have not. It is still important to:
Look for methods that are:
- complimentary to existing processes,
- as easy to use and efficient as possible, and
- designed to allow for true mobile functionality.
Identify signs of problems, such as
- employees not using or even bypassing the tools they have,
- poor integration with other business processes, and
- collaboration tools that force users to work in ways they dislike, or that don’t allow for flexibility.
One of the elements here that remains absolutely unchanged over the past several years is the importance of robust mobile capabilities. As much as possible, users should have the same experience using their collaboration tools on a mobile device as they do at their desk. Employees should never feel limited by their use of a mobile device.
Many aspects of corporate teamwork have changed, while some have not. It is the businesses that know which are which that are able to provide their teams with the collaboration tools they need to work at peak efficiency.