Remote Working: No Frills Collaboration

When the Pacific division of French multinational Pernod-Ricard was integrating the takeover of another company, it had to harmonise systems across Australia, New Zealand and assorted Pacific islands. In opting to do its brainstorming and planning online, using a tool called Grouputer.

The move saved Pernod-Ricard money on travel (about $150,000) and man-hours (150 days or so), but what’s really important is the managers achieved what they needed to accomplish quickly, everyone got input, and despite some initial resistance, participants felt included and valued.

But Grouputer is a real workhorse of a program and certainly not flashy. There is no shared video, no integrated voice, and the interface is bare bones, but it has a number of templates for voting and brainstorming that work nicely.

On the other hand, a pharmaceutical research business spent millions on an enterprise-wide video conferencing system, a work-group application and project management software and training, but success eluded its users.

Participants felt their input was ignored, they weren’t always working from the same information and that the outcome was predetermined by the organisation.

TIP: Both parties had technology which allowed them to access the information, but it was how leaders gathered and shared that information that made all the difference.

Version control of documents is critical.If someone spends tons of time formulating a response to an out-of-date document they can feel that their time has been wasted and that they are being kept out of the loop.

TIP: Something as simple as naming the file with a V (for version) number and your initials will tell people they are working with the latest information. You’d be amazed how often people forget and how frustrating it is. Enforce this as gently but firmly as you can.

Skilled facilitators have a way of pulling input from even reticent team members. Amazingly, some people actually like to analyse, think through and carefully craft their contributions to the project meeting. These people need real-time data, preferably before a decision needs to be made and want to contribute in writing (hoping that people will actually read and consider their hard work) rather than shout it out during a meeting.

Others will read the documents and need to discuss them online with everyone there. Are you offering both work types the opportunity to process information in the way that works best for them?

TIP: Set up discussion threads in your collaboration tool and then coach people to use it. Whenever you get an email from a teammate asking for information, provide it but suggest they use the workgroups as well — encourage and reward the use of these tools.

The ability to get the right document in people’s hands (by, say, using a shared drive, instead of having to stop the meeting and email the latest version) to gather input quickly and reach decisions through voting can be done by email or teleconference, but that can feel ponderous and can slow momentum.

Use tools like whiteboards, voting and chat, as well as real-time voice and the age-old rules of brainstorming to develop a sense of urgency around what you’re doing and demonstrate quick wins.

TIP: Most people don’t practise using web-meeting and collaboration tools until the actual event — then things get too complicated to multi-task well. Learn your platform, practise it and get comfortable so you have the mental bandwidth to focus on facilitation, not just functionality.

Sometimes people need to process information before coming to a decision. This allows introverts and analytical types to identify questions or concerns in a way that’s comfortable for them.

It also reduces cross-cultural barriers where a direct verbal challenge to someone’s idea (no matter how ludicrous it is) might be considered unthinkable. Even taking a break of an hour or two before voting on a momentous decision can help break group- think and prevent disaster.

While most of us support democracy, a direct show of hands might not be the best way to get honest input. Try a numbered or weighted voting technique, like the Nominal Group technique, where people can vote for more than one solution at a time and gradually eliminate the less successful. Learn different ways of generating consensus and apply them online.

Leaders need to develop the skills to facilitate the flow of information and use these very cool tools to maximize input, not just make bad decisions faster and cheaper.