Good collaboration is a cornerstone for a successful and efficient workflow. Without a doubt poor and good collaboration influence the productivity of staff correspondingly.
But it sounds easier than done. Proper alliance requires a lot of effort, testing, knowledge and tools, like team time tracking, managing tricks and books.
So, let’s get our hands on all of that!
How can Team Time Tracking Help Improve Collaboration?
When you’re managing a team, you have to know all about their working time, their plans, capacity and talents.
Why? Because one who owns the information runs the world.
In this case, the one who owns the info about their employees’ work can plan and manage better. And then of course run the world.
Unfortunately, manually “investigating” every employee will take a lot of time and effort and might not give any valuable insights that could help improve the workflow and collaboration. It is especially true when you work with remote employees.
So, how can you learn something new about both your in-house and remote employees? Team time tracking!
Time tracking is a great way to learn quickly vital parameters that сan help you improve collaboration.
E.g., by tracking employees’ time you can see exactly who has more of it and who needs help and/or delegation to handle the load. Delegate the responsibilities from the employee who’s overloaded to the one who has more free time and encourage collaboration between those two.
Also, all team members have to be on the same page in order to work together effectively. Their work depends on each other. With time tracking, you can find out when each team member begins and finishes the work day and how it influences the work of the others. Encourage employees to come and leave work during the same time period, so everybody feels comfortable.
Which Collab Tools are the Best?
Nowadays efficient collaboration depends on the apps that the company or team uses.
And it does make sense, because of the Internet and smartphone pervasiveness. The technology made it possible to work from home and still be a part of the team.
So, here are some great tools to use to maintain effective collaboration.
Google Apps
Google presents a set of free collab tools, available for anyone who use a Gmail email address.
There are three main tools from Google that you should use for efficient team alliance: Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Hangouts.
Benefit 15 GB of free storage that you get in Google Drive. Upload and share photos, videos, presentations, docs, etc.
Talking about documents, Google Docs present you all the main features of MS Office and even more. You can chat within the document, leave comments and suggest changes, Everything here is provided for simple collaboration.
Last but not least is Google Hangouts. It is very simple to use, and most importantly you can make a conference call with up to 10 people for free.
Time Tracking
Answering the first question we gave some of the reasons for why team time tracking is important.
So, to make time tracking efficient and time-saving use Yaware.TimeTracker. It is automatic so that it will consume neither yours nor your employees’ time. With its help, you can also track Internet and software use, which allows you to assess and increase employee productivity.
What are Some of the Best Books about Collaboration Management?
Lastly, efficient collaboration also depends on the knowledge and professionalism of the manager.
Being able to keep a group of people on the same page is not easy. But there are always great books that can help to gain knowledge and skills to make it more simple.
Collaboration by Morten T Hansen
In this book, Morten Hansen provides his long-running research, in-depth case studies and company interview that give managers practical advice on how to collaborate for real results.
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer
Do you still think that creativity can only be pursued alone? In his book, Keith Sawyer makes it clear that the moments of prophecy are usually a result of collaboration. Like that “eureka” moment that came to Archimedes after many hours arguing and comparing notes with his fellow mathematicians and philosophers.
So, check out this book to find out how your team can be more creative in collaboration.
Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances by J. Richard Hackman
This book is not about a single standard formula that you should stick to manage the team effectively.
Richard Hackman gives you five essential conditions that increase the likelihood of team’s success and practical advice that allow to form a certain management style for a specific team.
Conclusion
So, the main question was: “Can team time tracking improve the way you collaborate?”. And we say “Yes”. But don’t just trust our words, check out this awesome method in practice!
