How Technology Enhances Teamwork in Companies

How Technology Enhances Teamwork in Companies

Effective teams no longer have to sit in close proximity to each other to meet up for chats in the corporate coffee room.

The growth of the global marketplace and the increasing use of consultants and specialists hired on a contract basis means the old style team of people who had worked together for 20 years and instinctively knew what the others were thinking are gone.

But that doesn’t mean highly effective teams are a thing of the past.

New technology helps people build up a genuine spirit of working together effectively. In many ways, it is extremely efficient and keeps people from having to wait for each other or waste travel time getting to meetings.

In terms of useful technology for team building, probably the most effective team builder is the advent of simple-to-use and amazingly efficient project management software or communication apps.

From a variety of different locations, team members can track every stage of a project they are engaged in, from start to finish. Scheduling, task lists, budgets, and technical specifications are all at each member’s fingertips. Each employee knows what they are supposed to be working on each week, and also what the other members of their team are doing and how it will all come together.

Effective apps and software – such as BoostHQ – cross time and geographic barriers and even cultural barriers. Each person has the same access to information, eliminating behaviors where some members are more “in the know” than others, a factor that can undermine good team dynamics.

Having “meetings,” while not in the traditional sense of everyone gathered in one room, is still easily accomplished through videoconferencing and telephone calls made through the Internet.

One team member can email a colleague saying they need to talk to them about some aspect of the project. They set a time and call for free or very low investment, regardless of where they are in the work, using any number of conference call options. With the arrival of new technology, email is even beginning to be outdated. Email messages back and fourth are becoming too time-consuming for many employees and many of the discussions had are getting lost when trying to retrieve information several weeks later. Employees are constantly adopting new software tools that are making communication faster and more effective. Teams of workers, all busy in their home offices, in different time zones can all come together to work out issues on complicated projects using tools such as BoostHQ, Skype, Slack, Asana, etc.

Files and specifications can easily be forwarded to each team member through Cloud computing platforms. You can build an online library where only team members involved in particular projects have access. Members log in and can get all the information they need faster than walking down the hall to a central filing system.

If you haven’t thought of introducing new technology in your workplace for more effective and efficient teamwork, perhaps it’s time for you to reconsider.