Jazz combos and other bands make great music because they have a strong combination of individual chops and the ability to jam with others. In the new hybrid work environment, teams need a similar kind of combination. Hybrid teams can’t count on everyone being in the same place all the time, so they need opportunities for asynchronous collaboration (leveraging individual skills). To be at their creative best, team members also need direct, real-time interactions that happen within synchronous work (time together as a team).
This dual necessity suggests an approach to collaboration that’s more advanced than many companies have used to date. It also requires companies and leaders to rethink processes and technologies to meet these demands.
Three changes can enable high-performing, collaborative hybrid teams:
- Shifting to a more agile mindset
- Implementing collaboration-focused solutions, and
- Providing support for visual work.
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1. Embedding Excellence Through Agile
Agile practices have become extremely popular in the past 20 years. These practices have also proven to help team members be productive and effective, both when together and apart, or synchronously and asynchronously. This blend in ways of working has now become key to success for more than just technical teams, so introducing Agile principles to broader teams across a business can enhance collaboration and productivity.
In particular, two principles of the Agile ManifestoOpens a new window point to interactions that foster engagement, facilitate connection and result in innovation. No. 4 states, “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project,†and No. 6 asserts, “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.â€
Of course, with distributed, hybrid teams, in-person gatherings aren’t always possible, but these teams can still feel as empowered as they do when they’re working together in person. Agile Principle No. 5 touches on this point, “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.†This principle complements asynchronous work but without traditional siloed models. It also calls on organizations to create collaborative workspaces to enable frequent iteration and constant improvement.
2. Bringing Practices to Life With Technology
Practices alone, however, are insufficient to enable people to work well together or independently. To bring the practices to life, hybrid teams need the right solutions, and that’s where many organizations are falling short. It turns out that the most strategic and impactful collaboration activities are the most challenging to perform, according to a recent Forrester studyOpens a new window . Those activities include working sessions, planning sessions, and group brainstorming.
An additional problem in a hybrid work environment is that the existing tools most companies use are not effective. Forrester found that only 37% of respondents are extremely satisfied with their current collaboration and productivity platforms.
How can companies enable collaborative experiences that satisfy team members, whether engaging in real-time or asynchronously? First, look for solutions that encourage connection, a driving force for productivity. Team members should be able to contribute equally from anywhere. They also need transparency into tactical elements like schedules and status, as well as a clear view of each other’s work.
Solutions should be flexible enough to meet multiple communication modes — verbal, text, and visual — with a seamless transition from platform to platform. Visuals, in particular, can help to quickly prompt teams into action by providing a common language, a shared context, and a sense of connection to one another, even across silos.
3. How Visuals Advance Collaboration
Agile teams depend on visuals like Kanban boards, user journey maps and architecture diagrams for their success. Team interactions are often in the form of sprint planning, daily standups and more. In the virtual world, the ideal setting for visual collaboration is within digital whiteboards and intelligent diagramming solutions.
These types of sophisticated solutions support the advanced collaboration required in the hybrid world, enabling both face-to-face communication and side-by-side work on shared outcomes. People can contribute in their own workspaces, and then all ideas can be brought into one unified view to align all participants, as in a brainwriting exercise. Ideally, this should also be able to happen in real-time (synchronously) or at different times, as contributors are able to participate (asynchronously). Visual collaboration solutions also come with an advantage over individual note-taking: The visual work itself is a single source of truth that everyone can access at any time.
Use cases for visual collaboration are endless, but here are a few examples:
- Customer data usually lives in spreadsheets, databases and emails. These were difficult enough to sort through when everyone was in the same place. Without a clear view or understanding of that data, teams may go about trying to solve the wrong problem or create a service no one wants.
- Customer journeys are usually mapped, so why not customer experiences? When you visualize these interactions, gaps become more obvious and can be addressed appropriately.
- Similarly, written workflows often hide the dysfunction in a process, while visuals reveal it. Consider all the steps, systems and people involved when creating visuals.
- Documentation has its place, but most people want to know “what’s in it for me?†They need the big picture view but also want to quickly identify their roles and responsibilities. A text-heavy document can make it hard to see the big picture, taking team members away from the real work they need to do. Instead, a diagram, flowchart or another visual can provide context and put teams into action faster.
And what about creativity? How many big ideas were born out of rows and columns? Visuals are inherently creative and inspire more innovative thinking. A picture truly does speak louder than words.
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High-performing Hybrid Teams
For high-performing, connected, hybrid teams, Forrester urges companies to look for platforms that will enable a holistic collaboration experience. Key recommendations from the Forrester study include:
- Make collaboration technology a cornerstone of the workforce as both talent recruitment and retention strategy.
- Address gaps in your collaboration strategy by implementing tools that facilitate effective workflows and collaboration.
- Leverage advanced diagramming to visualize processes and architectures for the future.
- Prioritize applications that integrate with existing tools to increase deployment and adoption.
Enabling teams starts with giving them a stimulating way to collaborate and communicate, one that makes room for both group collaboration and individual contribution. By taking these steps to enable advanced collaboration, better decisions and more creative ideas are sure to follow.