What Are the Key Factors in Improving Project Management Collaboration Levels?
Finding ways to boost your project management collaboration is one of the best ways of giving your team more chances of success. Talking to one another and working closely as a team is more important than ever these days. Remote working makes it vital that we use the right tools to do this well.
What Does Better Project Management Collaboration Mean?
This simply means working more closely as a team with your colleagues on a project. It is something that often used to mean having physical meetings and sharing documentation with people who were in the same building as you.
The fact that many organisations now realise the benefits of remote working has led to a change in what we understand by project management collaboration. It is no longer just about dealing face to face with the people who are right next to you. We also need to take into account those project teams that still operate in this way.
These days, collaborating with project team members can mean sharing a plan with someone on the opposite side of the globe. It’s editing a spreadsheet at the same time as someone you have never physically met or allocating tasks to people in different locations. Do it well and you run smoother projects while also increasing the team’s effectiveness.
The Main Benefits of Good Collaboration in Project Teams
There are plenty of reasons for believing that collaborating well in projects will help your team to perform at a higher level. The following are a few of the key benefits you will gain from doing this.
- Better communication. Good communication is crucial for any project to succeed, as it is what lets everyone see what each other is doing and how it all fits together. The majority of people will work to a higher level if they can see the big picture and understand what everyone else is working on.
- Projects are finished sooner rather than later. Effective project management collaboration can help to get through your milestones more quickly too, as it means that you are able to sweep away any of the issues that could otherwise hold it up.
- The collaborative process reduces costs. This can work in different ways. For example, avoiding travel between sites and also lowering the risk of two people working independently on the same thing at the same time.
- Easier for new team members to settle in. The use of the right project collaboration tools and processes will help any newcomers to get settled into the team more easily. This means that you can offer training on the best practices in collaboration as well as in other areas.
- Delegate and clarify as necessary. Collaborating as a project team isn’t just about sharing documents with the people who need to see them, or working together on new documents. It also provides a framework for delegating tasks and for clarifying any issues that appear as you progress.
- A stronger sense of being a team. Any project team that collaborates well will feel a stronger sense of teamwork as a result. Even someone who is working alone on a series of tasks may feel more a part of the overall team effort in this way.
The Top Tools That Increase Productivity in Project Management Collaboration
Some of the aspects of collaboration in projects that we have looked at can be carried out manually. Once this culture is introduced into a team, they should find that it becomes natural for them to think of working together and sharing information.
Yet, the use of the right tools is also going to help to make this implementation a success. This is because they give us fast, intuitive ways of working together. It can save time once they are added to the team’s processes.
One collaboration tool that you have probably heard of is Google Workspace. The search engine giant has pulled together a wide range of tools. They let you share and edit worksheets and Word docs, with the option of sending emails or starting video calls from just about anywhere in it.
Yet, the one thing that the Google software really lacks is an integrated project management option. It is great for sharing documents and getting in touch with colleagues. But not so useful for organising your full projects.
Thankfully, Kanbanchi fills in this gap. It gives you project management and task management tool integrated with Google. In this way, you can manage all of your tasks using project boards that feature lists and Kanban cards.
Best of all, both of these tools are easy to learn. They offer an intuitive setup and require a minimal amount of training to start. This means that adding a higher level of project management collaboration is something that any team can do very easily.
Summary
Encourage your team to collaborate efficiently. Perform a project, by talking to each other and using the tools. In this way, you’ll be on your way to great results and a strong sense of teamwork before you know it.