Tools my teams use…

Tools for high-performing collaboration

“So what tools do we need to make teams work well together?” That depends, on what the team is supposed to do”, you might say. And you would be wrong. While there sure are task-specific tools a bio-engineer, a pattern cutter, a software engineer, a UX designer, a chef will use, teams, no matter the industry will need some tools to make them function well. These are the tools I have seen literally all teams use in some shape or form:

What makes high performing teams?

Without going into all aspects of high performing teams, shared characteristics I see are

• high degrees of alignment
• frequent and frictionless communication and collaboration
• focus on being lean and agile

and of course they they have high empathy and trust, and a mindset of continuous learning and adaptation.

What this means is that we need to enable our team members to interact and share information with ease, and provide them with the necessary structure within which to work that makes their lives easy.

Where do I start?

Ignoring subject matter specific activities and the related expert tools, all teams have a number of ‘usecases’ they will regularly encounter:

• They need to plan and individual will want to know what to work on, and will want to update work status
• They will want to elicit and share information
• They will want to co-create and collaborate

And all this within the team, and possibly with ‘outsiders’, and in regards to information that is extremely short last (‘Hey, are you working today?’), longer lasting / sticky (Some operating procedure), or important (<Infosec approval stamp here>).

To enable our team we will want to provide a range of tools that work well in each situation, while minimising the number of tools to avoid confusion, overheads and cost.

It’s not scary

we are literally talking about a hand-full of tools, most of which you’ll have in your organisation already. The trick is just to be clear about how the team will use them. (Consider creating a team charter with your team to outline this).

We are ‘literally’ talking a handful of tools here.

So, which tools should you use?

While I have taken a leaning towards digitisation (it’s just more efficient and convenient) and remote working (that’s how it is these days) we mustn’t forget that some of these digital tools can be replicated just as well (in some cases better) in the ‘real world’…

How to get it right

• let those doing the work decide on the tools they want to use, but don’t feel the need to introduce tools that don’t add anything to an organisation’s ecosystem (if you are working with a Microsoft shop, you may want to introduce Slack and Miro, but stick with Office365 for the reset)
• productivity tools are rarely single-task or single minded, use them to the beset of their capability and avoid one-size fits all solutions. I use Miro extensively for all sorts of things, as I have explained here.
• keep the number of tools low, avoid duplication, keep it simple
• formulate which tools you’ll use and what for in a team charter
• tailor to how you work: culture, team size and modality (remote / in person) have different ‘requirements’. More on this topic in this podcast episode and this playbook.
• review and adapt periodically, ‘enforce’ best practices, correct mis-use of a tool asap