Collaboration Tools for Higher Performing Teams Beyond “Management and Control” Toward “Collaboration and Communication”

(Reduced Madness)

Raija Suomela, Project Consultant, Operations Lean EastPriscilla Hansen Mahoney, Founder, Blazing Trails Coaching

Priscilla Hansen Mahoney

Blazing Trails CoachingBusiness Leadership GuideService Industry Business Coach

Organizations:ACE – President, Association for Consulting ExpertiseSPC – Society of Professional ConsultantsToastmasters – Area 24 Director, District 45IFOB – Institute of Family Owned Businesses

Lives in South Portland, Maine with her husband, Mike and her two dogs – Lexi and Doug

Fun Stuff:Registered Maine GuideCamping, Hiking, Kayaking, Snowshoeing, Fishing, Fly-tying

Careers:Rutabaga Farm (Family Farm)

Inventory AccountantOffice Manager

Business Coach/ConsultantSpeaker/Presenter

Guide

Raija Suomela

Live in Topsham, MElake camp in Norway, ME

Careers: Analytical ChemistryBusiness AnalysisConsulting

Volunteering / Community:Topsham Conservation CommissionMaine Audubon – Hamilton PreserveBig Brothers Big Sisters Bath/Brunswick

Organizations:ACE – Association for Consulting ExpertisePMI Maine – MEBACSMMC – Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber

Project Consultant, Operations

Agenda

• Definition of Project Teams / Project work

• Changing nature of Project Leadership

• Challenges in the current landscape

• Collaboration tools and team culture for team success

• Q&A

1) Raise your hand if you work in:-Government-Manufacturing-Healthcare or other Service Organization (Large)-Healthcare or other Service Organization (Small)

2) Raise your hand if you are involved in projects –Either leading project or are part of a project team

Audience Background

Example: The safety Committee: Ensuring all fire egress signs are correctly oriented to the wall they are posted on

Why “Project Management” is important to all of us now:

We have entered the era of project-based and gig-based work (vs routine role-based tasks).

Within companies, in full time role, we are all gigging it now. Assigned to ad hoc tasks + special projects.

We also collaborate in our communities, volunteer roles, government, projects in our families/households

Over are the days of Standard Work (do the same work every day) and common expectations

What do many ‘Projects’ look like?

People working on Unfamiliar tasks

Working outside of immediate area of expertise / comfort zone

Working with new people you haven’t worked with before

People don’t have common experience

Teams have decentralized power structure (not one leader/owner)

Thus.. Often No Convention for how to get the work done! (No standard processes)

Project Management

-“The Project

Manager”

Project Management (Execution) Evolution:

Let me TELL YOU what to DO

Let me TELL YOU how I’m going to collaborate with you

We know our roles and responsibilities and ‘the work in queue’ vs ‘the big picture’

Top-Down Project Management

Collaborative Agile Teamwork

Confused Space In Between

?

The Confused Space In Between

If you find people “Aren’t DOING IT RIGHT”..

“These are not the rules of the game I thought we would play.. “

…Ask yourself what you did to communicate your expectations. And help them own the processes

The People: Recognize we are coming together from different backgrounds

We are different – different ethnic cultures, different work cultures, different generations, professional training, etc.

We don’t have common rules, common culture/ common ground.

We have a variety of work habits and expectations for who does tasks and how work is done

Sports / game metaphor for project team work

For a Project team: The Metaphor of ‘Game’ is useful.

What is the game:• What is the overall objective?• Who does what? • What are the tools (ball, goal line..)• How do you win?

Each person needs to know the general landscape of rules so they can spontaneously make plays on the field (don’t need to call timeout and consult the coach for each play)

The Confused Space in Between

Old way of thinking? New way of thinking?

Push methods:Wait for meetings to raise issuesShare information / ask questions in emails

Pull methods:Visible work – comments in documents and collaboration tools ready for team members to see / respond to when they are available

This new world relies on new IT tools, and then a new culture and clear understanding how to use them

The Confused Space in Between

This stuff is hard.. But we can find the way!

If we are not centralizing work through one leader (old way), we need a new way of thinking and need to up our game in communication and information sharing tools and behaviors to have success.

Tools –Making work transparent

Three major categories:

Collaboration / Task Management

Communication / Chat

File Repository / Sharing

• Task Management

• Communication

• File Sharing

A Collaboration tool is the Glue that holds email and file sharing together

We (Priscilla and I) like Kanban boards

We like: visible work, clear assignment of

responsibility, priority, due date, status.

Assessible at all times, on demand (pull vs push)

Picking good tools ( the right tools for your team) matters – and ritualizing how they will be used

Collaboration / Task Management Tool

Kanban board

• Clearly Described• Assigned• Prioritized

• Scheduled (need by date)• Categorized • Linked

Benefits

Tasks are:

File Sharing / Document Repositories

Ideal state: all documents relevant to the work needed in a value stream are available in a shared drive, accessible to all related team members.

Tag / @ people when the document is relevant – for a question or task

Example Team Tool Set:

Collaboration / Task Management

Communication / Chat

File Repository / Sharing

Process Flow

Tuesday Team

meeting

Tuesday Team

meeting

Tuesday Team

meetingIssue

Emails

Actions updatedIn ticketduring meeting

Wed PM Send out Meeting

Minutes / Action Items

Issue

Comments@ / tag people

Old

New

Respond

Breakout

1.5 hrsEVERYONE

20 min

Reply all

…

…

You can only see work that are included in by email

You can see all work everyone is doing. Only need to look if tagged / included

TimeClarity

Need to read through email chains to be caught up

Delay

Only 15 minutes of the weekly meeting might apply to youAnd you only ‘give status update’

Short weekly scrum

Brainstorm: What are examples of wastes in project team work?

Establishing a culture of how to use the tools matter

If you don’t set up the culture of this project team..

.. Everyone is going to revert back to the old way / easiest way.

.. And you’re going to be swamped in email, have multiple file versions in multiple locations, your collaboration tools are going to be a mess, people are going to be mad at each other, and the customer’s needs wont be met

A “Project Reset”

Pull the Andon Cord

Tell your team that things aren’t working (They probably already know!)Get together and re-assess the process

Team Collaboration Health Check Tool

• Anyone in any role of a team can lead this effort. • Ask for 20 minutes on the agenda of your next

project team meeting.

One Tool we recommend:

Wrap-Up

We are in a Project-based world:

We will be collaborating with new combinations of people in teams all of the time

We will have different tools depending on who is involved, and context of project

Moving beyond email for success, sanity, and workplace joy

The customer deserves better – if we improve our way of working, we improve delivery of our products / services

Wrap-Up

Fallacy – assuming people know what to do! (People will see the tools and immediately recognize). Therefore:

Need to ritualize how to collaborate –rules of game, rules of engagement.

As project goes on, tweak use of tools / communication methods as needed to meet needs

Focus on relationships – the social nature of the work you are doing!

Q&A Questions? Ideas?