Empowering the Team

“Empowering” the team a key element for successful collaboration. Empowering the team members is done by increasing their knowledge about collaboration and providing the tools to use that knowledge in productive ways.

The “Knowledge” that empowers team members falls into two categories:

First and foremost is knowledge about people and the variety of styles, or ways of being, that we have when we work with others; knowledge about the various ways that people respond to conflict, as well as general personality traits that influence and determine how we communicate.

Secondly, knowledge of how to use specific tools to communicate with other team members. Symbolic systems like pictographs, the alphabet, and numbering systems were the earliest tools that were mastered by humans. Now the tools that we must master are project management systems, Wikis, Blogs, and oh yes email to name a few.

In future postings we’ll talk about these knowledge sets in more detail. Stay Tuned . . .

Team Communication

I’m  working on several “de-centralized” teams right now. One of the teams is spread out all over the state (New Mexico) and there are a lot of complaints about the ineffectiveness of our communication as we work on projects together. Sound familiar?

I brought up Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) about 18 months ago and have been trying to get everyone on board. But there have been the usual barriers to implementation.  They range from one end of the spectrum to the other. From lack of basic computer skills and not being able to access the website to advanced computer users thinking that basecamp is too simplistic and ”there’s got to be somthin’ better out there”. 

So for the past couple of weeks I’ve revisited what is available on Web 2.0 for collaborative teams and found that there are many, many good tools out there.

Now my quandary is . . . do I switch from the relatively simplistic Basecamp to one of the other tools, or do I stay with Basecamp.

Ultimately this is a people issue and not a technology issue because almost all of the tools are adequate and would improve the effectiveness of this teams communication. So how am I going to address the ”people” issues. Stay tuned . . . for how I’ll do it AND my comments on some of the other tools I’ve been working with and why I use them.