February 25, 2019
6 simple ways to increase team collaboration – and how it can boost your success
When you think about what makes a great team, what comes to mind? Is it bonding with a great group of colleagues? Working together on exciting projects? Whatever the answer, it’s likely that some of the best teams you’ve been a part of all shared one common benefit – a great sense of teamwork.
Teamwork and collaboration have become an essential aspect of working life. The majority of office-based roles involve working closely with other people. And not just within your own team, but with colleagues in different departments across your business. Therefore, it’s important that teams are able to communicate effectively with each other to ensure a seamless and open flow of communication. Effective teams communicate to stay informed of ongoing projects, keeping everyone on the same page and working towards the same goal.
Take a look below at these 6 simple ways you can promote collaboration within your team – and how it can boost your success.
Build trust and let your team be heard
For teams to work effectively together, it requires trust and communication (especially if you have team members working remotely). Creating a collaborative environment where people feel comfortable voicing their opinions makes people feel valued and that they can make a positive difference. Create opportunities for all voices to be heard equally and fairly to ensure open communication across your team.
If you’re a manager, be sure to check in with your team consistently. This will give you an ongoing understanding of what’s working within your team and what could be causing any issues. Try to get monthly one-to-one meetings in the calendar for each member of your team. Asking your teammates for individual feedback and taking the time to listen to that they have to say will encourage them to not only contribute ideas, but feel a valued member of the team.
Promote a sense of inclusion
Promoting unity within your team helps to create an atmosphere of friendship and loyalty, in which teams feel inspired and comfortable to share ideas. Close-knit teams help to support each other and ultimately motivate each other to work harder. By establishing a sense of inclusion, your team will feel that their opinions and knowledge are being valued and that they are playing an important role within the team.
People thrive in engaging environments with open communication with their colleagues. Try to have weekly team catch-ups, where each person can contribute their ideas to an ongoing project. When your team makes open collaboration a priority, each person will feel part of a much bigger goal, keeping them inspired to achieve the best results.
You can also build a strong sense of inclusion by organising some fun, team-building activities outside of the office. Don’t be put off – team building activities allow colleagues to see each other as people, rather than just work colleagues. Spending time together outside of work helps to strengthen the bond between the team and make working together more comfortable and constructive.
Establish clearly defined roles and responsibilities
The downfall of good teamwork is confusion. A lack of understanding about what each member of the team is responsible for can lead to uncertainty and frustration as teammates try to work out how they fit within the team dynamic. By establishing clearly defined goals and responsibilities, everyone within the team will know who to go to for certain queries or guidance, and understand how their role fits alongside other colleagues in the team.
It also allows you to leverage people’s individual strengths. Your team will collectively have a diverse range of skills and utilizing these appropriately will help your team to gel and allow people’s strengths to be pulled together.
Agree on team goals
As much as people have their own individual projects and objectives, teams ultimately thrive when everyone is working towards a shared goal. When you can see your work come together with that of your colleagues, it will keep your team on track to success and motivated to reach the finish line together. Not only does agreeing on team goals keep your entire team on target to the overall business objectives, but it instils a sense of solidarity amongst colleagues – driving long term motivation and productivity.
Pay attention to team efforts
Motivation drives productivity. Recognizing when your team has done a good job does wonders for staff morale. When people feel like their hard work has been recognized and valued, it keeps them motivated to succeed; especially knowing that their work is being put to a good cause. Being able to create an environment where your team feel happy and fulfilled in their roles is a wonderful way to encourage team collaboration and inspire a productive working environment.
Try celebrating the little wins. In Ayoa-Taskboards, you can congratulate your team on a job well done by hitting the Congratulations option when they complete one of their tasks. This will display a shower of celebratory confetti over their completed tasks – giving them that wonderful boost of recognition after reaching that all-important end goal.
Use a collaboration tool to aid team productivity
With our devices glued to us wherever we go, technology has become essential in enabling us to carry out our roles and responsibilities. Using a task and project management tool such as DropTask [Ayoa] will help your team stay informed of all work updates and progress. Encourage your team’s communication skills with DropTask [Ayoa] Chat – this allows colleagues to share and communicate both directly and in groups, plus with the additional ability of being able to send tasks within chat, you’ll never lose work in conversation threads again.
Having everyone’s tasks displayed in group projects within DropTask [Ayoa] allows colleagues to see what the whole team is working on. This is vital when considering the team goals you set and making sure that everyone is on the same page.
Psst! We have an exciting new feature, DropTask [Ayoa] Chat, which will help boost your collaboration skills and bring your teamwork to life. Try DropTask [Ayoa] free today and don’t miss out.