A guide to successful hybrid collaboration

While hybrid setups have become the norm, many leaders still struggle to establish an intentional workplace strategy that prioritizes digital collaboration.

Effective collaboration is essential for successful teamwork. However, in today’s working world, maintaining employee balance can be a challenge as many of us juggle our time between the office and home.

The Lucida study found that when it comes to design deficiencies 37% of Australian workers they believe that their teams lack balance. Miscommunications, information silos, and a lack of clear direction can lead to missed deadlines, frustrated employees, and ultimately impact your bottom line. Recognizing alignment failures and taking proactive steps is crucial, but it is equally important to understand that digitally enabled collaboration is more than just purchasing new technologies, it is putting the right strategies, culture and tools in place to improve knowledge sharing, alignment and commitment .

Dave Grow, CEO of Lucid Software, shares three ways to successfully implement digital-first collaboration strategies that will ultimately increase the productivity of your entire organization.

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Create a living plan

Nearly half (47%) of Australian businesses there is no unified way of sharing documents with organizations because not all relevant team members are kept informed. In fact, the average employee spends 3.6 hours a day searching for information. Regardless of where your teams work, establishing processes and systems that help people streamline information and create a single source of truth is a must to keep your teams aligned.

These single sources of truth should include your team’s most frequently used resources, project-specific goals, timelines, and progress toward those goals. The idea is to create a centralized repository of all relevant documents, data and information regarding the project, so that the entire team will be, literally, on the same page.

At Lucid Software they use Team spaces as their living plan. It improves collaboration between diverse teams while offering project management and communication options that help you avoid unnecessary meetings (virtual or IRL).

Streamline your workflow and encourage engagement from your entire team

Employees who return to the office may instinctively return to their pre-pandemic daily office activities, such as using a physical whiteboard or taking notes during meetings. As a result, they will lose valuable digital records of their ideas and decisions and run the risk of excluding remote team members.

To embed digital-first collaboration in your culture, you need to identify where it can make the greatest impact. It is best to think of collaboration based primarily on digital technology as a philosophy that governs the daily functioning and collaboration of employees. When assessing your technology stack, you’ll want solutions that integrate with the applications your team already uses to keep them consistent, engaged, and streamline their decision-making. For teams working in the office, engaging brainstorming sessions are made seamless with the use of interactive touch screens such as Google Board 65 by Avocor. All teams, both on-site and remote, can contribute equally to keep ideas flowing.

Consider what gaps have been left in existing processes and tools, and where you can introduce digital solutions to keep teams connected both in meetings and asynchronously. Every employee, regardless of collaboration style or location, must be able to contribute and communicate equally. Managers can lead by example and be the first to add a digital format to their meetings or other collaboration activities.

Unlocking the power of visualization

If you haven’t assessed your tech stack post-pandemic, now is the time to determine which platforms are still appropriate. Ask yourself the following questions: How can we replace multiple tools with one? Are teams currently connected in a meaningful way despite their location?

Visual collaboration software can provide your team with the right tools to enable meaningful, digital-first collaboration. Visual collaboration is the practice of digitally simplifying and streamlining organizational teamwork using scalable canvases that can be used to map processes, create system diagrams, create virtual whiteboards, brainstorm, and track ongoing projects.

By implementing visual elements into the way they collaborate, teams can clearly see the connections between complex ideas, plans and systems, while providing the team with a common, visual point of reference, helping to communicate big ideas to remote or distributed teams.

As the world of work evolves, organizations need to evaluate their current processes and tools to ensure they are truly supporting their employees in the right way. Digital-enabled collaboration strategies and tools can support teams to be more aligned, helping companies achieve their goals while creating a more positive and engaged work environment.