For decades, the art and science of being productive at work has centered on positioning resources to solve problems and achieve objectives. In other words, it has essentially been about coordinating.
Coordinating can only go so far, however, and can’t meet the increasing complexity and speed of today’s workplace. Organizations need to focus on changing not only the way they manage their employees but also the tools they use to get the job done.
Antiquated Tools Aren’t Up to Par
Traditional project management software is built around a straightforward view of productivity: one where resource “A” completes a task before passing it to resource “B.” Even when tasks happen at the same time – which is often the case – the focus remains on coordinating and finding the right mix of people and resources (like technology and tools) to move a project or program forward.
Yet, while this perspective is theoretically appealing and lends itself to impressive-looking Gantt charts, there’s a problem with applying it in the real world. It’s not working.
Here’s why: As more organizations shift to a democratic work environment that relies on active employee participation to drive innovation, they’re discovering that the ability to coordinate resources isn’t enough. They also need to foster effective collaboration in order to identify, organize and leverage every last bit of available knowledge capital. If they don’t, they’re not just sacrificing profits and potential, they’re putting their long-term organizational survival on the line.
However, because many organizations are saddled with conventional project management software that is inherently designed for coordination – not collaboration – they aren’t realizing these benefits, at least not fully and on a consistent basis. Yes, they may have “collaborative moments,” but that’s all they are: scattered episodes, not ongoing expressions.
New Tools for the New World of Work
In today’s ever-changing modern workplace, priorities, projects and tasks can change at a moment’s notice. There’s also an increasing need for collaboration between employees on different teams and across the globe. The modern worker needs easy, all-in-one access to their mission-critical information in a single place to complete their work.
What does this mean? It means modern collaboration technology needs to meet the following three requirements to be effective:
- Be intuitive and easy-to-use so that adoption rates are high and employees can keep up with the increasing speed of the modern workplace
- Foster organic collaboration by combining unstructured conversations with structured work to drive consistent innovation and success
- Give real-time visibility into the status of projects for both employees and external parties such as customers or stakeholders, ensuring all are aligned and working with the most up-to-date information
Companies should be investing in technologies designed from the ground up to help organizations unleash a culture of collaboration, one where long-term success is not only based on putting resources in the right order, but also on empowering and enabling people to work together in new and innovative ways.
A few years ago, this might have seemed like an optional “best practice” that only elite organizations could claim. Now, however, it’s the emerging standard in the new world of work, a standard that will clearly separate winners (the democratic, transparent modern workplaces) from losers, and success stories from object lessons.