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Small & Medium Business
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Great teams are built, not born
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Examine any great achievement and behind it there is often a remarkable team that has mastered collaboration and productivity. Productive teams need to be nurtured and given the right tools and resources to excel. To that end, here are some tips to help your company build teams that collaborate well and perform beyond expectations.
Human factor: Before a project begins, make sure your team members get familiar with each other. This is most effective in a pre-project meeting, preferably in a setting where the focus is not work. While a formal meeting can be a good start, often an informal setting such as an off-site dinner can help build the team dynamic. This meeting is especially important if the team will work virtually through most of the project.
Roles and responsibilities: Work with the team leader to create a team roster. Like a baseball team, everyone should know their position and the role they play in the project. Include outside collaborators and vendors, because their support can be critical to your team's success.
Timeline: Every good project has a defined timeline, with benchmarks engineered inside it to allow project stakeholders to evaluate progress and adjust as completion nears.
Standardize the tools: Determine what tools are needed to complete the project and get the team to agree on their use. Permit the team to use tools that they are already comfortable using. There are some great applications to choose from, that integrate well with groupware applications.
Give your team a home: Centralize a home for the project. This can be a physical working location (dedicated room or work area). Or if your team operates virtually, choose an online workspace environment like Bell Hosted Windows® SharePoint™, a hosted team collaboration tool from Bell. This kind of virtual workspace tool promotes contribution and sharing of information.
Train your team: Good team members are well trained, so they should be familiar with collaboration tools before the project starts. This ensures the team is productive from the outset.
Measurement: Measure team progress by reviewing processes and efficiencies. Seek feedback from team members to see what is working and what needs adjustment. Take action to address concerns and fine tune processes. Windows SharePoint Services also allows deployment of team surveys, so project managers can get feedback from team members.
Manage documents: Collaborating on team documents can get complicated, especially if more than one version of a document gets created by the team. With Windows SharePoint Services, users have access to a centralized document library where materials can be checked in and out. This ensures that only one person at a time can modify a document. An alert feature, also notifies team members when a document has been updated or changed.
Post mortem: After a project is complete, gather the team to review it and look at what worked and what didn't. And look for ways to create efficiencies and better collaboration on future projects.
Team collaboration solutions from Bell
Windows SharePoint Services from Bell provides you central location where team members, partners and even customers, can come together and contribute and share information. Teams can create online workspaces in a hosted environment to meet, deploy surveys, maintain libraries of project documents and develop task lists. A free 30-day trial is available so you can evaluate SharePoint for your team. Contact your Bell representative to learn more.
Legal:
These sites are suggested by Bell Canada as a courtesy, and Bell Canada is not liable for any of their content or any use made of them. Microsoft, Windows and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective mark owners.
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