In the last 200 years we’ve developed a variety of methods for communicating with one another.  We’ve taken the journey from individual letters delivered by horse to instant mass communication.  How can things get any more social than that? Deltek Kona, that's how!

Being ‘social’ involves more than just communicating and working together. Merriam-Webster defines social as “relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other”. 

The key phrases “talking to” and “doing enjoyable things with” only seem to reference something outside of the workplace.  In the 1980s, the focus was on output and productivity.  In the decades that followed, we labored to attain the ever elusive ‘work-life balance’.  In the new millennium, we strive toward contributing fully in our work and personal lives without restrictions of time and space.  We want to enjoy ALL of our life.

Deltek Kona, released in spring 2012, combines all that we know about working together with the best methods of communication.  It presents that blend to us allowing us to talk to each other AND do enjoyable things with each other across our work and personal lives.  Guided by the principles of confluence, immersion, accessibility, and digestibility; the innovators at Deltek Kona have found a way to leverage the best of all the communication tools developed in the past 50 centuries (not a typo: we still draw on walls to convey our thoughts) to help us interact in a more social and enjoyable way today. 

How does Deltek Kona help us get more social?

Use Deltek Kona to Create a Hometown

Kona is organized around context specific spaces or groups.  Each space is formed with a level of focus appropriate for its purpose.  There are no limits to the number of spaces an individual can belong to or the number of members in any one space.  Each space landing page is the “hometown” for the group allowing members to participate in and view interactions that are taking place.  Over time, users begin to become acquainted with each other’s concerns, thought processes, and involvements.

Enhancing Personal Interaction

Individual users may have more than one group in common across work and personal interests.  Knowing more about what you have in common with others allows you to get more social with them as individuals.  The ability to create and store one-on-one conversations with people in your Kona network allows users continuity and privacy even when time and distance are barriers to traditional communication methods.

There are times when we are having a conversation in a group but need to direct our comments to a particular person.  Deltek Kona incorporates “@mention” functionality to expand the personal contact in the context specific discussion. Nothing encourages us to communicate more than feeling like we are being listened to and understood.

Eliminating Polarization

Deltek Kona was built to be free.  Users can enhance their organizational experience with an upgraded account.  Regardless of the type of account, the experience and interaction is the same. This removes the barriers of participation across all members of the group and continues the social experience as no one is barred from participation because they must pay.  This allows us to use Kona for all sorts of purposes, from family reunions, to political organizations, to multi-firm business projects.

Deltek Kona further removes barriers by elimination of platform dependencies.  The Kona software works the same on any operating system and internet browser.  The accessibility extends to the mobile platform where users continue to get more social from wherever they are and whenever they want to. 

Increasing Personal choice

One of the favored features of the Deltek Kona product is its flexibility with the individual users’ need to digest information and connect on in his or her own time.  From the moment one opens the Kona product, it is clear which items take priority.  A user can access a conversation with 20 unviewed in-line comments and get a clear picture within minutes.  This is the first step in creating an enjoyable social experience when working with a group.

Because the Kona team recognizes that email has its merits, they’ve enabled the individual to decide how much or little Kona activity is transferred to email.  The possibilities to limit but not eliminate are almost endless for the individual user.  Being able to choose which groups to get more social with enhances the interactions that are wanted.

With much of our productivity arising from collaborative efforts conducted across vast geographic spaces, we meet and interact with more people than ever.  The Deltek Kona tool allows us to stay informed and control the inflow of information leading to a more relaxed experience.  When we remove unnecessary stressors, we naturally take time to get more social and find common ground with those around us.  Sign-up for Deltek Kona today and join the 21^st Century’s answer to communicating, socializing, and getting things done.

My social life is full of Project Management professionals.  Engineers, IT people, Construction Managers, and Event Planners.  I quizzed a few asking about the task management tools they use and what they liked and disliked.  After several hours of phone and instant message conversations, I realized I learned very little about the tools and a lot about the groups they work in.

Stuck on the plan

Z says he loves the Gantt chart.  He likes the graphical representation of the timeline. Great!

He spent the next 45 minutes explaining that the chart is created at the beginning of the project and is never updated even when they are clearly lagging behind.  Outside factors such as varying commitment to the project and unforeseen challenges move the actual timeline and meetings are held to determine which tasks will not be delivered to make up for the time.  Notes are kept, negotiations are executed, and none are memorialized using the task management tool he loves.

Changing the Gantt is really hard with all the different dependencies that were created at the beginning.  He keeps his own notes now in a different program that allows for commenting.  He’s not the project manager on most of the projects, so he keeps them to himself.

• Tools must be flexible enough to change the plan and allow for the inclusion of data along with the tasks
• Group members should have confidence that the information is located in a place where they can find it

Stuff is everywhere

K works with creative types.  He works for a MAC shop, and solutions are fewer for task management tools so they use email, and Lync, and the SharePoint site, etc etc.

His group has differences in communication styles, working schedules, and even location.  More time is spent managing the information so that it is visible to the group at large, which takes up as much time as completing the tasks and collaborating on the project.  Time is lost forwarding information to people who missed it or weren’t included.  At various stages, someone is invariably surprised and disagrees with the actions taken.

• Task management tools should not care what platform you are working on or where you are
• Communications should be easily transparent to team members even when they fall behind

Do you remember if…?

E works on long projects with a great deal of turnover and changes to tasks and timelines. The team is actually composed of clusters from different companies but one group is the document master.

There are several subsets within the group that make decisions for the project.  The discussions are held live and communication to the rest of the group on action items is relayed using email. One person updates a spreadsheet that is now too big to email and can only be accessed with a login to a program installed on a workstation.

• The tool should allow new members to get up to speed quickly
• Data should be accessible from anywhere to any team member

Lessons learned about task management tools

After multiple discussions on task management tools, these common themes continued to ring true. Solutions should be:

1. Transparent
2. Modifiable
3. Flexible
4. Accessible

Do you have further insight in to the task management tools your company is enabling? Respond in the comments section and let us know! 

Let’s be clear: people are not squirrels. That being said, when you’re trying to get your firm’s employees to interact with each other effectively, it may seem like trying to herd the little woodland creatures.

Most firms’ leaders already know that the most effective answers to this challenge involve improving collaboration, communication and teamwork. Easier said than done, right?

Fortunately, social collaboration tools can improve the effectiveness of not only your individual employees themselves, but also the separate functions within the firm and also the organization as a whole. Here are some of the ways a firm can use these innovative tools to add value throughout the organization.

Executives

From the CEO or partner’s perspective, social collaboration tools have the potential to improve productivity at every level within the organization. Here’s how:

• Individual employees are empowered to share information and collaborate on projects more efficiently and keep their managers and colleagues up-to-date in real time.
• Functional units can collaborate more effectively, because managers have better insight into the status of all ongoing projects. Managers also have a central location for all project communication that doesn’t disappear when an employee leaves.
• Differentiating your firm from the competition by providing a collaborative environment for not only your internal team members, but outside consultants and clients. 

As an example, collaboration tools such as Kona make it far easier to include clients as team members throughout the process. Compared to other firms that simply use emails and phone calls to keep clients in the loop, a firm using these tools can enable more integrated and up-to-date communication with clients, and at the same time, create a more enjoyable customer experience. 

Project Managers

On each project, project managers can get better visibility into milestones and issues, improving project efficiency as well as the client’s experience in several ways:

• Improves team members’ communication and accountability, while reducing time wasted in status meetings.
• Strengthens the project manager’s relationship with the client, and also differentiates the firm.
• Brings new staff up-to-speed more rapidly, shortening the time required before they can contribute.
• Creates a centralized record of working issues, tagged and easily searchable. 

Marketing/Business Development

Professionals in a firm’s marketing/BD function, like its executives, stand to benefit in the long term from the differentiation that can result from effectively managed social collaboration tools. They also benefit in more tactical ways:

• Improves communication and accountability in proposal planning, development, and review, including go/no-go decisions.
• Streamlines event planning and tradeshow preparation.
• Provides unified view of specific tasks across multiple BD proposal efforts happening simultaneously.
• Enables greater consistency and knowledge transfer across multiple groups working on proposals and other repeatable processes. 

Information Technology

IT departments can use these tools to address a range of technical needs and, at the same time, change the culture to one that is more collaborative. Among its impacts, a social collaboration tool:

• Enhances internal and external collaboration while protecting network information.
• Is less expensive than traditional collaboration solutions such as SharePoint.
• Improves management of complex IT projects and saves time by enabling peer support.
• Allows the CIO and other leaders to be more aware and experience the “pulse” of individual projects and issues.

Human Resources

For the HR function, these tools can help in ways that are both strategic and logistical. Social collaboration tools:

• Streamline and expedite recruiting and on-boarding processes.
• Use two-way internal communication about tasks, events, and topics to create a more collaborative environment and improve employee engagement.
• Allow HR employees to be more productive in planning and implementing internal events and initiatives.

Accounting

For the accounting function, social collaboration tools bring new efficiencies to a variety of ongoing processes in multiple ways:

• Rather than having to dig through email chains and contact multiple individuals for updates and answers, accounting professionals can streamline the month-end close process by generating repeatable steps to organize and capture financial information.
• Contract management can be improved by creating templates with specific steps and forms to guide each project.
• Accounting staff can create a private but accessible space to capture progress and follow-up on A/R issues, assign individual responsibilities and maintain a centralized log of progress toward resolution.

The Collaborative Edge

In a sense, your most important asset could also be a liability:  If your staff cannot collaborate effectively, you’re not optimizing your firm’s capabilities. Social collaboration tools have the potential to improve collaborative capabilities at every level and in every area of your organization, bringing about measurable improvements. At the same time, they can help you create a better client experience and differentiate your firm from others — critical factors in attracting and retaining clients and employees.  

From the treehouse, to the garage, to the conference room, and now to the web, we’ve been doing group collaboration all of our lives. We’ve done it so much that we rarely, if ever, think about the finer details that really make the difference between a pleasant journey and a treacherous adventure.  

Over the years, I’ve managed or participated in dozens hundreds of projects. I am great with communicating with people, a whiz at technology, and even pretty savvy with interpreting human behavior. Doing all three, while trying to get something done, is a challenge. I’ve learned a few things about group collaboration and the lessons are equally applicable across tools and platforms. 

Be Captain Obvious.

Be careful not to assume that everyone knows why they are assembled and what the objective is. Often, team members find themselves gathered without a complete understanding of the purpose, goal, or constraints. Too often, leaders assume that all group members have (or remember) all the details they need. The first activity using your tool of choice is to lay the groundwork. Create an accessible communication that defines:  

• The final objective and it’s priority relative to other objectives in the organization
• The team members and their roles, including the leader
• The stakeholders
• The due date

Revisit the communication frequently and highlight changes to the originally stated information. 

Even anarchists use sign-up sheets for potlucks.

No group can function devoid of guidelines on structure and communication. Guiding the team’s administrative characteristics does not quash the creative spirit. Providing structure saves time and minimizes confusion, thus encouraging the collaboration. If you don’t want to appear as dictatorial, address the appropriate considerations during the first meeting and let the masses decide. 

• Define acceptable means of communication
• Explain how documents and collateral are to be managed
• Detail how activities outside of the group collaboration tool will be memorialized inside of the tool
• Choose a process for moving seemingly off-topic elements to the appropriate venue 

When members lose their way, communicate the guidelines again. AND be willing to change previously defined processes that don’t work. 

Hammers are used to hit nails, not fingers.

“It’s really uncomfortable telling people what to do. Peer pressure goes a really long way. Can’t the software produce a list for everyone to see?” 

Really?!  Seriously?! 

Frequently, we use tools to get us out of doing the things we don’t want to do. Group collaboration tools are meant to encourage the flow of ideas and communication. No collaboration tool creator has ever recommended that you use the tool to publicly shame non-performing members. Like alarm clocks, annoying reminders can be shut off (or even thrown across the room.). The alarm clock does nothing to get us out of bed, but the boss sure does. 

• Communicate tasks and due dates clearly
• Ensure that the responsible party understands the dependencies
• Follow-up on at-risk tasks appropriately (read: personal phone call) 

Let the tool serve in its capacity and you serve in yours.  

If it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a frog.

When the group collaboration tool is not yielding the success you expect, don’t blame the tool. When we find ourselves ready to throw up our hands and go back to another tool or no tool at all, it’s best to investigate for root causes and make adjustments.

• Audit the participation of team members.  Spend one-on-one time with those who are not engaged by reviewing the project while using the tool.
• Review how the tool has been laid out for use in the project. It is possible that features have been overlooked or are being used improperly.
• Solicit suggestions on improving the use of the group collaboration tool.  If someone speaks up, the ensuing discussion will uncover misunderstandings or create opportunities to collaborate on finding a solution.  Either way, collaboration has taken place and a connection made. Win-win.

None of us are new to working in groups. Each of us brings the baggage we’ve accumulated from previous collaborations to our newest venture. The best thing we can do is to zero the scales, define, communicate, and revise. Group collaboration only works if the group is spending its time collaborating and moving easily from task, to topic, to task. Take the guesswork out of how to function within the group and use the group collaboration platform to propel the group.