Collaboration and Content Management
With the modern business model having changed radically from its counterparts of even the more recent history of the 1980’s or 1990’s, collaboration and content management have become a priority with equal significance to building the flexibility and efficiency needed.
Why Collaboration Has Become Increasingly Significant.
With the rapid growth of technology and the advent of globalisation, businesses and organisations now have the opportunity to create project teams using the most suitable candidates. Talent for any given project could be in different cities, time zones or even across the globe. The use of expertise from around the world completing a project within the timeframe, and on budget, is a far more efficient process than trying to source local expertise to cover all the project’s requirements.
However, having remote teams does create a variety of new challenges. Long distance telephone calls and email are an inefficient use of resources and waste precious time, so how can team members collaborate and stay informed and updated? The most direct solution to this problem is with a portfolio of effective software tools to coordinate the various aspects of project management. The development of cloud computing solutions means that they have steadily become more viable and are now entering main stream business.
Online Management
Online project management tools are excellent at improving collaboration, and produce a very cost effective way for smaller companies to move onto the cloud while enhancing productivity throughout the team.
There are various collaboration programs available, but a good service must have the following components:
- Tools for project management- task managers, status reports, shared calendars, a control panel and Gantt charting.
- Tools for content management- file version, hosting and locking.
- Tools for collaboration- group chatting, voice or video conferencing, memo or white board and document sharing
- Tools for Web 2.0 efficiency and productivity- the facility to star, comment, search and share.
These elements are essential to allow effective management of a project, make collaboration simple, make all the files and relevant resources easily accessible, and log a record of progress made within the project.
Although the sharing of resources, documents and tasks is an obvious priority of collaboration, the creation of a log or project history should not be overlooked. This is a fairly new concept and allows accountability within a project. By bringing transparency and visibility to the activity within the project ensures that the team accountability and responsibility to bring the project in on time, and within budget. It provides a reference for all team members and can reduce the instances of miscommunication when project members have differences in culture, or barriers of language. It increases personal responsibility and can be a fantastic learning resource for analysis of what worked and what procedures or processes need additional fine tuning.
With the speed in which the modern day business model changes and adapts, the key to success lies in whether an organisation can efficiently utilise the collaboration and content management within its infrastructure.