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Collaboration: Characteristics of Successful Teams
The success of any business collaboration effort depends on three factors: the people, the technology, and the process. For a collaborative project to be successful, these three factors need to work together easily. A recent research study on collaboration, conducted by BNET and Harris Interactive, shows why some teams are more successful than others. Stephen Howard-Sarin, Vice President of CNET’s business sites, shares the findings.
For more on dream teams, see our BNET feature package Build a Dream Team.
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>> If you study the inner workings of any successful collaborative project you'll notice they tend to share some very critical factors that have all been done right. It's the convergence of these factors that make a project a success.
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>> Stephen Howard Serine joins us today to discuss the findings of a recent study commissioned by BNET, sponsored by Adobe and conducted by Harris Interactive on collaboration in the workplace.
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>> Stephen: Let's start with some pain points.
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>> Stephen: Teams that have been less successful in their collaborative efforts identify several factors that interfered with their team's ability to successfully complete a project. Number one: team leadership did not deal effectively with conflict.
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>> Stephen: Number two: Project goals and objects were not clear or were unachievable.
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>> Stephen: Three: Team leadership couldn't build consensus or make decisions.
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>> Stephen: You could say that a successful collaborative team is a result of a convergence of several elements. Project goals and objectives have to be well-defined and achievable; team leadership needs to set a positive collaborative tone for the team and the project; leadership has to b successful at building consensus and making decisions; and information that the team needs must be well-organized and well-maintained. If you put the successful teams side by side with the less successful, you'll see that the successful ones excel in each of those categories.
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>> Stephen: Successful teams tended to meet more regularly and stick to their deadlines; and ultimately successful teams took less time to complete their projects--typically just one to three months. Successful teams are also more likely to have access to technologies for collaboration--things like word processing application or shared folder in a network or a PDF creation application, those things go a long way. And it's not surprising again when we compare successful teams to unsuccessful ones the successful teams are much more likely to report that they had access to the appropriate software to facilitate their collaboration.
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>> Stephen: In general the importance of positive working relationships cannot be overemphasized. People look to their project team and their workgroup leaders to take responsibility for making a positive atmosphere. They can do it in several ways--you have to create a positive tone for collaboration; you have to build consensus around project goals and objectives; you have to articulate those goals and objectives; you've got to step up to make decisions and effectively resolve conflict.
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>> For more information go to bnet.com
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