Collaboration has long been popular among project managers and corporate leaders seeking to improve team performance and organizational alignment. And it’s not surprising why.

According to research, even the perception of teamwork can improve team motivation and performance. In fact, one study discovered that organizations that encouraged collaborative working were five times as likely to be high performers.

With increasing digitization and remote and scattered workforces, discovering new and effective ways to collaborate is more crucial than ever.

Teamwork and collaboration are essential for project success regardless of the industry you operate in. Fortunately, there is a huge marketplace of collaboration software applications available to assist your team members in working together effectively and efficiently. Some businesses may avoid using this software because it is expensive to implement, particularly if you have a large staff. However, the benefits provided by collaboration software yield a significant return on investment (ROI).

Let’s take a look at some of the software’s primary perks and how they might help your team.

Talent and motivation alone are not enough to boost productivity and alignment. For teams to succeed, stay on track, and deliver value on time and on brand, they need to be communicating and collaborating effectively. 

Collaboration helps teams and organizations

• Save time
• Improve project management
• Create alignment 
• Boost creativity and innovation
• Strengthen performance

Why is Collaboration Important?

Collaboration boosts your team’s ability to work together and solve problems. This leads to higher creativity, more efficient processes, greater success, and better communication. Listening to and learning from team members allows you to help each other achieve your goals. Collaboration requires effort and commitment, but the advantages to your team outweigh the costs.

Problem-solving

Have you ever faced a crisis at work where you didn’t know who to call on for help? This is preventable when you make collaboration a priority. A team that knows the processes and methods at hand is better equipped to streamline remedies and identify teammates who can help.

What if the protocol for crisis management isn’t established? A collaborative team has the opportunity to brainstorm together, working off of each other’s expertise to find a solution. It’s all about working together—and knowing how to do it.

Adaptability

Like problem-solving, adaptability is a natural result of a collaborative team. If a team understands its function and its end goal, it can prepare for any situation that arises. Change is sure to happen within your field and forecasting that change is predictable for a prepared team. Teams and organizations have to change at a pretty rapid pace, and if your team isn’t aligned, it’s easy for change to lead to disaster.

Open communication and participation

Teams that collaborate also communicate. Integrating collaborative tools like Asana and Todoist into your workflow, is the first step to communicating efficiently. Using these, teammates are able to see the work in progress, who’s responsible for it, and how it affects everyone’s work.

A team that knows how to collaborate is comfortable sharing their ideas and adding new processes and tools to the table. That level of participation means teammates can communicate with each other in a clear and direct manner. This brings forth new innovations and ways the team can improve. Always use a professional email address to communicate within the team and with the customer to have a good impression. This brings forth new innovations and ways the team can improve, like using a digital newsletter.

Skill-sharing

So your team is communicating, forecasting change, and problem-solving—but a team can’t do this without the exchange of knowledge. If your team is able to bring its expertise to the table, everyone can coach each other, teach new skills, and elevate the team as a whole. And every good team has a diversity of knowledge that will contribute to new approaches to achieving success.

Goal alignment

A team reaches a common goal through a combination of individual and team-driven efforts. With a clear goal in mind, you understand your role and the purpose of your work. This means you can combine your abilities and knowledge to improve your workflow and achieve your common goal. Aligning on these goals leads to team-wide support, contributing to all-around skill-sharing and increased productivity.

Engagement

A supported employee is a satisfied employee—one who is comfortable sharing ideas and aligned with team goals, but also prepared to tackle what’s next. And a satisfied team member comes in each day ready to work and help the rest of the team. Engagement is important for many workplace benefits: productivity, profitability, retention, and happiness, to name a few. 

Read Also: The Top ERP Software for Enterprise Resource Planning

As more workplaces prioritize employee engagement as a metric for success, it’s essential to foster a collaborative environment for better engagement. If you want to be an engaged teammate, consider all the benefits of collaboration in the workplace to improve your own performance and support your team—that’s what it’s all about. 

Benefits of Online Collaboration Tools?

Whether you continue to work remotely or resume in-person cooperation, it is critical that you cooperate as successfully with colleagues as feasible. After all, the best organizations profit from a collaborative approach that brings individuals together to:

We take a look at 5 key benefits of online collaboration tools. We also include some real-life examples of good collaboration that demonstrate the advantages of using online tools.

1. Save time and resources

Emails undoubtedly eat up more of your work time than you realize. In a typical week, the average worker spends 28% of their time reading and responding to emails, and 19% searching for and obtaining information. That’s nearly half your week spent on administrative activities.

An online collaboration tool could help speed things up.

That was the case with Lexicon Pharmaceuticals and WIN/RATIO. Collaboration software enabled peers to work on a single document in real time. What was the result? Both businesses were freed of the time-consuming, laborious procedure of collecting feedback and comments from emails. And they saved hundreds of hours.

2. Increase productivity

This brings us to the second advantage of online collaboration tools: higher productivity. By automating certain duties and simplifying work procedures, you free up time to focus on more important activities. So you can accomplish more in your day.

It also allows you to focus on jobs that digital technologies cannot currently perform. Rather than gathering feedback from colleagues on, say, a project you’re working on as a team, you may focus on improving your contributions and brainstorming the next great idea.

3. Improve communication

An online collaboration tool can help your office become more linked than ever before. This is especially handy for coworkers who aren’t always in the same workplace or even nation, which is becoming more typical in today’s hybrid working environment.

Even when you’re not working in different locations, online collaboration solutions can help your team communicate more effectively. A strong online collaboration tool reduces the likelihood of colleagues missing key emails or changes, and it guarantees that everyone working on a project is on the same page.

4. Remote collaboration is made easier

During the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, many businesses embraced online collaboration software, perhaps for the first time. Not only does it improve how colleagues communicate when working in different locations, but it can also help when working with external third parties.

Take Covid Moonshot, for an example of good collaboration. This was a global project that sprung into existence last year when participants working across the life science industry joined together with a common goal. They wanted to develop a pill that could help fight coronavirus. To collaborate on experiments and analyse data together, the participants used online collaboration tools. As a result, the group achieved impressive breakthroughs in drug development and are testing a pill next year.

Another benefit of online collaboration tools during the pandemic? They removed the need for travel between locations. Not only ideal during Covid-19, this also had environmental and cost-saving benefits as virtual collaboration proved an effective alternative to traditional in-person conferences and meetings.

One example of this would be the World Health Organisation’s World Health Assembly that took place during the midst of Covid-19. Ordinarily, the Assembly would be attended by hundreds in person. However, due to global lockdowns, the WHO used Ideagen PleaseReview, an online document collaboration tool, to ‘conduct its first-ever digital World Health Assembly.’ Without an online collaboration tool, it’s likely that the Assembly could not have gone ahead. 

5. Boost team morale

Online collaboration tools provide employees with more freedom to work where they want, while doing so more efficiently. If everyone’s work is also being received and acknowledged – rather than becoming lost in email chains – they’re likely to feel more appreciated.

What’s more, we know that good collaboration can generate inventive ideas and help colleagues learn from one another. With a virtual tool that enables better communication and sharing of knowledge, it becomes easier to inspire each other. For example, a comment on a shared document that is visible to everyone may spark an idea in somebody else.

And when your business starts to see improved results, there’s a good chance your team will be more engaged, happy and productive.

Types of Collaboration Software Tools

Generally, collaboration software can be divided into synchronous (or real-time) and asynchronous. Using synchronous software, teammates can work together at the same time, for example with apps that allow several users to edit the same document in real time. Asynchronous software enables users to work on the same task at different times.

Based on their key features, collaboration software can be classified into:

• Communication software
• Task management software
• Document and content management software

However, most collaboration tools combine features of several types.

Communication software

Fifty-nine percent of US workers claim that communication is the biggest obstacle that prevents their team from achieving success.

To solve communication problems, communication software offers chat and audio or video conferencing so people can communicate within teams without having to travel. As a result, communication software saves time, helps solve problems faster, and allows remote teams to connect, which otherwise would be difficult and time-consuming.

Key features of communication software include:

• Chat and messaging to enable real-time text conversations using direct messages or group chats
• Audio and video conferencing to let people make calls and hold meetings regardless of their location
• Discussion threads to allow users to reply to one particular message in a group chat or channel without distracting other teammates
• File sharing to make it fast and easy to upload and send files

Task management software

Task management is an important part of collaboration. Teams use task management software to prioritize and track tasks, which helps to keep track of deadlines. To make collaboration more transparent and effective, task management software often provides boards, timelines, and calendars.

Key features include:

• Boards to create and manage tasks
• Task assignment to appoint people to a task
• Task prioritization to move tasks and set the project schedule
• Planning and scheduling to create plans and meet deadlines using timelines and calendars
• File management to attach and arrange files

Document and content management software

Document and content management software allows users to store, share, and work together on different files. Most of these tools track history of changes that different users make. Some collaboration apps and platforms also have features like chat and video conferencing, allowing users to collaborate on a document and communicate at the same time.

Key features include:

• Document and content management to store and track documents and other files
• Cooperative writing to let several people write content together
• Synchronous editing to let several people edit the same document at the same time and see changes in real time
• Ready-made templates to create documents faster

Different sorts of collaboration tools provide various interesting characteristics. The most crucial thing to remember is the problem you’re trying to address. Why would you need collaboration software? What do you want to accomplish with its help?

Understanding your company’s demands and requirements will allow you to evaluate which characteristics are most relevant in your specific instance. Determine what communication issues your team is experiencing, as well as the types of content you share and work on. Before making a final selection, you should see if the collaboration software integrates with the technologies you already use, such as Jira or Dropbox. You can also create a checklist of features based on your requirements, workflow, and current issues. This will help you select the best solution for your team.