Full Sail Partners Blog (60)

What are the major productivity killers for firms in the Professional Services? For most firms, some of the biggest ones revolve around information overload, duplicated effort and other inefficiencies. 

Fortunately, team collaboration tools can address each of these areas — and thus have a positive impact on the productivity of individuals and teams throughout an organization. 

First, let’s consider the element of information overload — which for many people is exemplified in the form of an overflowing email inbox. We all know the frustration of seeing fifteen different emails with the same subject line, where people are actually commenting each other’s earlier messages — and then trying to untangle the sequence of the discussion to make some sense of it. Not only does this type of information overload take time to sort through, but the reality is that with so many emails piling up, important messages can get lost or go unread. 

Another major factor that negatively affects productivity is duplication of effort. It’s common for multiple people in a firm to be working on the same problem — but is some cases, rather than working as a team, they’re operating in unconnected silos. Even if the whole team was in the same meeting, subsets of the group may have informal follow-up meetings, or even chance encounters in a hallway. Any one of these can result in parallel (and duplicated) efforts. 

Inefficiencies come in a variety of flavors, ranging from the annoying to the scary. One of my favorites is the issue of document versioning. This is especially likely when multiple people are working separately on the same document. Unless a firm has a solid solution in place, it’s all too likely for multiple versions of a document to spring to life, each with its own edits and authors. Sorting through the different versions to create one final document can be a time-consuming source of frustration. 

Real team collaboration is a beautiful thing

Now let’s switch gears and talk about some of the productivity gains a firm can realize by implementing effective team collaboration tools. 

One of the most essential functions that collaboration tools perform is organizing team members’ communications into a centralized repository of conversations around specific tasks and issues within the project. In the Kona tool, for example, individuals can have conversations with one colleague, a small group within the team, or the entire team. They can also see the various subtasks, view a centralized project calendar and share information with the entire team. 

Team collaboration tools can enable project managers to set up their groups so that certain members are able to see all conversations, while others have a more limited view. This capability can be especially critical when collaborating with clients. 

Kona in particular has found an effective way to address the problem of sharing documents among members of a team – one that ensures that everyone is working off the latest version. Instead of sending colleagues the actual document as an email attachment, users can send links to where the master files are stored (including such online services as Dropbox, Box or Google Drive). 

Last but not least, when collaboration tools are web-enabled, like Kona, they’re ideal for optimizing the way people work in the real world. After all, not all of our productive time is spent at work; we can also be productive when we’re in between doing other tasks, whether at home, on business trips or elsewhere. Team collaboration tools allow individuals to continue being productive, wherever and whenever inspiration hits. 

Summing up

Until a firm finds an effective way to address factors like information overload, duplication of effort, and inefficiencies, its productivity will probably suffer. Team collaboration solutions may hold the key to making the most of your team’s collective abilities — and at the same time, minimizing the overlaps, dropped balls and other issues that may be limiting your productivity.
 

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.  

For years marketing professionals have been clamoring for a way to directly merge information from their Deltek Vision system to an InDesign template. For firms with Deltek Vision version 7.1 and higher, the wait is over! Creating InDesign Templates and merging information directly from Deltek Vision is simple, and is very similar to merging from Word, with some usability enhancement.  

Before we begin, you might be asking yourself, ‘What kind of functionality will InDesign merging include?’ To answer your question, we have highlighted some of the major areas below:

• Add fields and grids (including user defined!) to an InDesign template
• Format number, currency (projects only), and date fields in a template
• Merge data directly from an info center record into InDesign
• New ‘Select Projects’ function for Employee Resumes allows for more precise formatting of project examples on resumes within InDesign

So as you can see by the functionality, the ability to merge data directly from your Deltek Vision system to Adobe InDesign is going to allow your firm to easily deliver accurate, more consistent proposals through the industry standard desktop publishing software.

What exactly will we be able to merge?

If your information is in Vision, you can now export it out allowing your firm to merge the following documents from Deltek Vision to Adobe InDesign:

• Resumes
• Cover letters
• Project cut sheets
• References
• and much more from your Vision system 

Merge functionality includes the ability to pull information from tables, grids, custom Info Centers, and user defined fields.

What technical requirements are required?

In order to run a Deltek Vision merge to Adobe InDesign, you will need to be running a copy of Adobe InDesign CS5.5 or newer, installed on your local user directory. You will also need to be running a copy of Deltek Vision 7.1 or newer, with TDM enabled.

So what are the steps?

Setting up Deltek Vision to Adobe InDesign merge capabilities is surprisingly easy! The process requires five major steps, highlighted below.

1. Access the ‘Merge Templates’ section in Deltek Vision (Configuration>General>Merge Templates), this step may require you requesting additional privileges from your Vision administrator
2. Select the Info Center you would like this template to be associated to
3. Create or upload a new template. If creating a new template, please be aware that you will need to insert merge codes from the Vision Merge Code window
4. Open the ‘Custom Proposals’ Info Center, select the proposal you want to merge information out of, and link the new template to the merge function
5. Merge your information out of Vision!

So now that you know the basics of what Deltek Vision Adobe InDesign merge integration offers, we encourage you to get started. Should you or your team need further information, reach out to our team of CRM experts to assist. 

The weather this winter has played havoc with the daily lives of millions of individuals, as well as countless businesses. 

One industry that has felt the impact in a unique way is that of professional services firms. These firms rely heavily on collaboration among their team members to manage and work on their projects. Unless they were already prepared to allow employees to work remotely, when the bad weather hit, many of them had to simply shut down until employees could once again manage to get to the office. 

Fortunately, technology is offering better and better project collaboration tools that allow team members to work together no matter where they’re located. But that’s just the tip of the snowdrift, so to speak. These solutions also make life easier for individual project managers and team members, increase the amount of creative collaboration among members of the team, and ultimately result in better projects. What’s more, they allow firms to easily include clients based in other locations, helping to maintain and build communication when meeting face-to-face isn’t an option. 

Let’s look at some of the key capabilities that effective project collaboration tools enable within a firm.

• Communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime. The most essential capability is making sure all the people involved on a project are able to effectively communicate and collaborate with each other. Any given project can include various employees and teams within the firm, as well as assorted external individuals, such as client representatives, consultants, and attorneys. A group this diverse often presents challenges in terms of finding communication channels and applications software that everyone can access and use — whether from their desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
• Organizing the work. A second major function of effective project collaboration tools is to manage the tasks that are involved in each particular project. This function allows the project manager to use a central, intuitive resource to manage the many individual deadlines that are typically managed through email and Excel spreadsheets to complete milestones.
• Streamlining document management. A third major function that effective collaboration tools address is that of document-sharing. Using a tool such as Kona, for example, allows you to share documents that your entire team (including external members) can view. As a result, instead of searching through dozens of emails to find the documents you need, you and your team have a centralized location. In addition, users have the option of uploading files directly to Kona or using other file-sharing solutions, like Dropbox, Google Docs, or SharePoint.
• A better view across projects. An effective project collaboration tool allows project managers to have a view across all the projects they are managing. As a result, they not only have insight into the specific tasks, conversations and files for the current project, but can also view upcoming tasks and new conversations and files in one widely-accessible environment. 

Better collaboration, better results

For firms in the professional services space, project collaboration tools offer a wide array of functionalities that can help improve not only the interactions of a given project’s team, but ultimately, the quality of the ideas and solutions the firm delivers to the client. An added benefit of technology-enabled collaboration is that it can help create a better experience for the clients involved — and that can help a firm differentiate itself from its competition.

Have you ever tried to communicate a thought or idea to a group or team, and yet no matter how hard you try, you cannot get your point across? Like it or not, we have all been there. The cause for this breakdown in communication could be many different factors, but many times this breakdown is caused by a failure of fundamental best practices for team communication.

Let’s review four of the best practices for team communication that will get your team operating at full sail:

1. Responsibility is on the sender of the message, not the receiver! We live in a complex world, and most of us are juggling what feels like a hundred different things. This can often lead to us jumping from task to task, often leaving a tornado-like path in our wake. Next time, before you start forming the message for your co-worker or teammate, stop for a minute and organize your thoughts. If you are having a hard time keeping up with your train of thought, how do you expect someone else to follow it? As the communicator, it is incumbent on you to develop a coherent, easy to decipher message that has been received the way you intended.
   
   Think > Organize > Disseminate > Confirm
   
   
2. Cut out the noise. You may be sitting there saying “DUH!”, but honestly ask yourself, have you done this lately?
   
   Communication noise refers to influences (outside and internal) on communication that effect the interpretation of the conversation. Often over looked, communication noise can have a profound impact on both perception of interactions, and analysis of our own communication proficiency.
   
   Noise can be many factors ranging from psychological (stereotypes, biases), Physical (loud music, incessant background noise), physiological (preoccupied during conversation), or semantic (sender mumbles or uses jargon). In order to follow our best practices for team communication, we recommend identifying any potential noise before, during, and after a conversation, and addressing it immediately!
    
3. Haste makes waste. Rarely are our first ideas, our best ideas. Often times in the business world we will spend hours upon hours forming our thoughts and opinions about a subject, and then turn around and expect our peers to provide the same insight, only on the spot.
   
   In all fairness to your project team, you must provide your team with an environment that fosters thinking, collaboration, and open ideas. Failure to do so will cause even the most extroverted of individuals to crawl in to a shell, making their ability to interpret your message more difficult. Lack of creating an environment that fosters collaboration will lead to team members more worried about why you are asking a question, rather than what you are asking.
    
4. Listen, listen, listen! Did you know that we listen at a rate of 12-250 words per minute, but think at a rate of 1,000-3,000 words per minute? While impressive, this statistic is very scary! One of the biggest breakdowns in communication comes from lack of listening, both from the side of the sender, and the side of the receiver. If you, or your team, are too busy forming your opinion about what is being said, rather than listening to what is being said, you are doing your entire team a disservice. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason!
   
   Tip for better listening: If you are working behind a computer while having a conversation, do not ever open up your emails mid meeting. We all want to check that fresh email that just popped up in the corner of our screen, however by doing so you have effectively checked out of the conversation at hand.

We hope that you can apply these best practices for team communication, and improve the effectiveness of your team’s communication efforts. Agree or disagree with anything in this blog? Make sure to comment below and let us know your thoughts! 

Interested in improving team communication? Check out Deltek Kona, a new social collaboration tool. Deltek Kona is revolutionizing the way teams communicate!

When you improve project collaboration, you improve your organization’s ability to develop innovative products and processes. What are some specific strategies you should employ to get to a more collaborative environment? 

1. Focus on goals. The most effective project collaboration tends to be aimed at a specific goal or goals. So a natural place to start the process is with a discussion of the pain points/problems for a given project that the team is trying to address. Starting in this way ensures that team members share a specific understanding of what success will look like, and also makes it easier to take periodic measurements of the team’s progress and compare it against the established goals. 

2. Create small, diverse, nimble teams. The best way to encourage collaboration on a team is to keep groups small and diverse. For inspiration, consider that one of history’s most prolific inventors, Thomas Edison, liked to organize his people into teams of 8 or less that included a variety of disciplines (his light bulb team, for example, included chemists, mathematicians, and glassblowers). Fortunately, collaboration tools on the market make it easier than ever to include team members not only from different parts of an organization, but from different parts of the world. 

3. Build trust. To improve project collaboration, it’s crucial for team members to trust and respect one other. In a similar vein, they must be sure that management is supporting them, providing the time needed for collaboration, and giving credit where it’s due. If you’re assembling a team with members who are working together for the first time, consider team-building exercises that allow the members to get to better know each other and their work/communication styles — building cohesion and trust in the process. 

4. Choose appropriate tools. We live and work in the age of the app — and that’s good news for organizations that are seeking to improve project collaboration. There are many software tools that empower collaboration — not only widely-known ones such as DropBox that facilitate file sharing, but also other, lower cost (and even free) tools for screen sharing, real-time chats and IMs, scheduling and more. Click here to read about our five favorite collaboration tools. 

5. Appreciate different approaches to technology. Ultimately, you’ll want your team members all using the specific collaboration tool or tools that you select, for ease of management and cost effectiveness, if nothing less. That being said, it’s helpful to keep in mind that not everyone may be ready to adapt to the new technology at the same time (“hey, what’s wrong with me just collaborating via e-mail?”). Be realistic, and build a process and schedule that allows time for bringing every member up to speed on the new technology. 

6. Allow sufficient time for success. Evolving to a more collaborative environment is not a simple or quick process. Rather, it requires changes in not only how group members work individually and together, but also in the level of trust that the individuals have in each other and in management. Try to manage expectations in such a way that you maintain enthusiasm for the new possibilities the process will enable, with the realism that success will not come overnight. 

7. Effectively capture information and ideas. Last but not least, make sure your have a system to capture and store the group’s collective work, as well as individual members’ contributions. Unlike using simple email for communication among team members, the leading collaboration tools create central repositories where communication and documents can be archived for later referral — a very useful capability to have throughout a project, but especially when a key team member leaves. 

Gentlemen (and ladies), start your collaboration engines!

Collaboration may seem like just another corporate buzzword … but for the most part, the strategies underlying it are not too different from your other tried-and-true business practices. By carefully establishing and guiding your project teams, equipping them with the most effective collaboration tools, and managing expectations appropriately, your organization can be on its way to far more innovative and responsive products and services. 

Ready to begin collaborating as a team? Read our below blog to learn how to work more cohesively:

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.

Almost everyone has heard Thomas Edison’s famous quotation about genius being “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Far fewer people stop to wonder exactly what Edison was sweating about. 

The answer is, Edison was not only working on the various inventions for which he’s well-known, but also on the emerging discipline of R&D itself. Even as he and his team were cranking out one technological marvel after another, one of Edison’s ongoing areas of interest was in improving collaboration in the workplace. 

According to Sarah Miller Caldicott (who happens to be Edison’s great grandniece), the world’s most prolific inventor developed a methodical approach to nurturing teamwork and innovation among his workers. In her book on the subject, Midnight Lunch: The Four Phases of Team Collaboration Success From Thomas Edison’s Lab, she describes the little-known, behind-the-scenes processes that Edison pioneered to create and sustain high-performing teams. 

Caldicott does a great job of finding insights into Edison’s approach that have relevance for businesses today, so I highly recommend checking out her book. In case you don’t have time to read it yourself, I’ve synthesized some of Caldicott’s key observations with current best practices in collaboration. For starters, I’ve identified three major areas where organizations often make mistakes that prevent them from improving collaboration in the workplace. 

Mistake # 1: Keep doing business the old way.

It’s natural to keep using the same tools and processes that have worked for you in the past. However, your competition is probably hard at work trying to figure out a faster, cheaper way to put you out of business. So “sticking to what works” may put your organization in an increasingly vulnerable position. Fortunately, there’s a constantly expanding variety of tools that can help you maximize your ability to collaborate. 

One of Edison’s interesting approaches to fostering collaboration was the “midnight lunch.” These were regularly scheduled but informal get-togethers where his engineers got to know and trust one another better, increasing their ability to communicate and work as a team. In today’s business environment, technologies like Kona and Skype may make it easier for teams to exchange ideas, but many people who write about collaboration still point to the effectiveness of starting with face-to-face meetings and then evolving to virtual collaboration as time progresses. 

In Edison’s day, the products of collaboration were obviously analog — although many of their ideas existed only in their heads, a great deal existed on paper as well. If a team member left, much of their work and insights could literally be passed out among team members. In today’s world, we are meeting the need by creating central repositories of files and communication — so if a team member leaves, all their intellectual property doesn’t leave with them. 

Mistake # 2: Assemble the wrong type of team.

The ideal size team for collaboration depends on a variety of factors — including the complexity of the work, the products the group is expected to generate (and the timeframe for doing so), and how often, if ever, the team needs to convene in person. 

For what it’s worth, Edison preferred smaller, more cohesive teams of between two and eight members, according to Caldicott. In addition to hosting the “midnight lunches” mentioned above, Edison also tried to ensure a mix of disciplines and areas of expertise on each of his teams; Edison’s light bulb team, for example, included chemists, mathematicians, and glassblowers. To put it another way, Edison and his colleagues were focusing on diversity decades before the term was ever used in a business management context! 

Mistake # 3: Take your eye off the ball.

One other lesson to be learned from Edison is to take the long view on collaboration. Real impact is not a short-term gain or achievement, but rather an investment of energy and resources that will eventually bear fruit. 

Taking this perspective, it’s easier to realize that mistakes can be just as instructive as successes. When Edison was only 22, he had his first flop:  An electronic vote recorder that legislators declined to adopt. Following that experience, Edison changed his focus to the consumer instead, and never regretted the decision. 

Another lesson Edison teaches us is to keep an eye on the market, and be ready to make adjustments as necessary. For example, he and his team ushered in the era of electricity, and then continued to invent new applications that used the increasingly available power source; other inventors ignored electricity at their peril. (For a more recent example of how not to do things, look no further than Kodak, which failed to adapt to market changes and is playing catch-up with hundreds of more innovative, nimbler companies.) 

Has the light bulb over your head turned on yet?

Most companies would consider themselves to be phenomenally successful to have even one innovation on the level of the light bulb, the motion picture, the phonograph, or any of the hundreds of other inventions and patents credited to the Wizard of Menlo Park. But by making the most of the collaborative tools and strategies for improving collaboration in the workplace mentioned above, your company can at least maximize the chance that your teams will do their very best work. 

It is a new year; everyone is feeling pumped and ready to tackle their goals! As a professional services manager nothing makes you more excited than seeing your team excited. Enthusiasm is not something we can reproduce, nor is it something we can bottle up. What we can do however is help sustain this enthusiasm and better help our staff in continuing working together as a team in 2014! 

So what exactly can we do to help sustain this new found enthusiasm? Ultimately it boils down to transitioning your staff from ‘coworkers’ to ‘teammates’. I like to refer back to the common TEAM acronym, Together Everyone Accomplishes More. By breaking down each part of the acronym, we can brainstorm on ways to improve your staff cohesion, and get them working together as a team in no time! 

Together:  One of the most important things you can do to get your staff working together as a team is to get everyone working on the same system. Often, individual departments are working on their own specialty software, which in the grand scheme of things keeps everyone stuck in their own box. This lack of overall perspective does not bode well for fostering a team atmosphere. 

However, some firms are in situations where it is not feasible to migrate the entire firm in to a singular system. In this case, I would recommend looking at other ways to collaborate and share data, such as setting up a Kona space or DropBox folder for projects. For more information regarding collaboration tools, read our recent blog on the 5 best collaboration tools. 

For professional services firms that are in a situation to leverage a fully integrated system, I encourage you to check out Deltek Vision, the leading ERP software providing professional services firms with a fully integrated system. We have countless resources explaining the benefits of Deltek Vision on our website – if your professional services firm is not currently leveraging the power of Vision, we encourage you to spend a few minutes learning more. 

Everyone:  In order to be successful as an organization, and as a team, you will need to have buy-in on everyone’s part. Your firm can invest in the world’s best software, and top of the line infrastructure, and none of it will mean anything if your staff does not buy-in. Every effort you lead should have a champion. Think of this person as a team captain for the project. This person will act as a resource, and will help keep assigned efforts on task. Without a champion, your effort is sure to lack overall direction and decrease in effectiveness. 

Accomplishes:  We have all heard the saying ‘keep your eye on the prize.’ So ask yourself, are you giving your team the ability to keep their eye on the prize? An important aspect of being a member of a team, is the ability to know that you are doing your part. To accomplish this, team members need goals, and they need ways of tracking these goals. By developing a set of core growth strategies and metrics your firm will be able to position itself to consistently surpass your competition. Additionally, you cannot understate the value of the sense of accomplishment your team gains from attaining small ‘wins’ along the way to the main goal. 

More:  To keep your staff enthusiastic, you need to be willing to challenge them. By expecting a level of professional growth out of each team member, you create an environment of development. Human beings by nature want to be challenged and engaged. 

We have all heard the saying ‘there is no me’ in team. This saying could not be any more true in the business place. While at times it may feel easier to do things in a vacuum, often times this is not the best strategy for the overall company.  You will often find that this team environment will foster new creative ideas, an increased industry perspective, and most importantly a continuing enthusiasm that can quickly spread to the rest of your staff. 

Pave the way to future growth and higher profitability by encouraging your co-workers to work together as a team. To encourage this behavior, consider how your firm can leverage integrating critical business processes. You will find that by doing so your firm can increase productivity, help control costs, and enable firm success. 

Hopefully by following the above advice your firm will operate more efficiently as a TEAM, and continue that new found enthusiasm. Respond in the comments section and let us know how your firm as transitioned from ‘coworkers’ to ‘teammates’ – we would love to hear your story!

Not all business buzzwords are created equal. For example, “collaboration” is red-hot among buzzwords today — but unlike other momentarily popular topics, the concept has been around a long time, but is now being addressed via technology designed to leverage the Internet. Collaboration apps and platforms typically take advantage of the Internet to enable the sharing of documents, ideas, calendars and more with colleagues. In fact, the more one embraces collaboration, the more implications one can find for teamwork, innovation and growth.

Here’s a quick look at the 5 best collaboration tools available today.

Kona

Kona is a cloud-based social collaboration/productivity platform for individuals and groups that enables file sharing, task/event management, and comments and conversations via Skype and instant messaging. It also integrates easily with other collaboration platforms and products, including Dropbox, iCloud, Google Docs and even SharePoint (if that’s your collaborative bag). 

In addition, Kona includes templates to expedite repeatable projects and processes, and can function as a company’s Private Social Network and shared calendar. Even better, Kona’s mobile app compliments its desktop functionalities, letting users track work from anywhere. Take it for a test drive by checking out the free trial version.

join.me

JoinMe is an elegantly simple (at least, simple to the end user) solution that allows you to share screens with anyone anywhere over an Internet connection. JoinMe can accommodate up to 10 meeting participants, and allows the meeting initiator to choose which items to share with whom, and enables chatting with one participant at a time or all at once. Keep in mind that these features are all in the free version — a fact that helped it land on our list of the 5 best collaboration tools.

Doodle

Doodle is a handy meeting scheduling/tracking tool for Android device users. Designed to integrate seamlessly with Google Calendar, Doodle makes it easy to find the right date and time for a group of people to meet. You can use the basic service for free at doodle.com, without the need to register or install software. With easy-to-use polling capabilities and real-time commenting tools, it’s also available as a low cost app for Android devices.

Dropbox

Currently in use by over 200 million people, Dropbox is a cloud-based platform for file sharing and accessing. Users designate a special folder on their computer that Dropbox synchronizes with similar folders the user creates on their other computers and devices. Any files that the user places in the Dropbox folder also are accessible through a website and mobile phone applications. Available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux desktop operating systems, Dropbox also offers apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry devices. Options range from a free version to DropBox for Business ($15/user/month).

Skype

Skype enables free video and voice calling to anyone else using Skype, as well as instant messaging and file sharing. Alternatively, a modestly-priced version of Skype includes low rates on calls to mobile devices and landlines worldwide, text messaging and group video calls for up to 10 people. Users can take part in Skype calls using a wide variety of devices, from desktop computers and mobile devices to home phones, certain TVs, and even devices you might not think of as collaboration tools, such as PlayStations Vitas and iPod Touches.

Join the collaborative world

As you can see from the 5 best collaboration tools mentioned above, the world of collaboration choices and tools is exploding. But before you jump in and start rubbing virtual elbows with colleagues on the other side of the world, keep in mind two bits of advice:

1. As attractive as their price tags may be, the free versions of all of these apps and platforms have limitations. For example, you may be limited in the number of participants you can accommodate and the amount of data you can share — and you may have to endure the occasional advertisement as well.
2. Remember that integration with your existing apps (especially your calendar) as well as other collaboration apps is critical. Some of these apps, such as Kona, play well with almost all of the apps mentioned above; others, not so much. The more seamless the integration between your various collaboration apps, the bigger the impact on productivity and ease of use.

Despite those caveats, each of these tools can truly transform aspects of the way you work with colleagues. The result could be better ideas, more effective teams, and possibly even a better quality of life. Just imagine how nice it would be to cut down the time you spend setting up, going to and from, and sitting in meetings — not to mention, take part in them from the comfort of your own home, cubicle, or coffee shop!