Today’s workforces seem to be stuck in a never-ending state of confusion and disorganization. Between the UK’s continuing Brexit story, the threat of global trade wars and the rapid technological advancements altering the project management landscape, enterprises are increasingly being facing uncertainties.
Employee anxieties, any sense of disconnect with the rest of the organization and concerns for the future are further fed by the efficiency drives that see offices closing, more remote working and hot desking, and the fact that many in global enterprise work across time zones.
A Clarizen research found that 70% of the 300+ companies surveyed globally already have employees, departments and teams spread across several sites or working from home on a regular basis, so it is hardly surprising that ‘collaborative chaos’ has emerged as a major business challenge.
As a result, PM teams are often left lacking a sense of unity, project visibility and an ability to optimise resources. All too often they find that dispersed teams and members fail to effectively communicate and end up talking at each other rather than collaboratively working together.
Many find themselves communicating across an abundance of different platforms and frantically searching a desktop full of open tabs on their computer as struggle to provide an up-to-date and accurate status report to one of their project teams or a relevant stakeholder – because that person is using a different work management and/or communication tool altogether, with an entirely unfamiliar format!
Business agility is critical at a time of growing economic uncertainty when organisations need to ensure they become nimbler in structure and decision-making and increase employee empowerment.
Yet, according to research by The Business Agility Institute, 79% of companies surveyed struggle with business agility and believe they needed to be more agile in order to respond quickly to market changes and disruptors.
Enterprises that embrace business agility today have shown a propensity to tame “collaborative chaos” within the same team and across different teams.
What does it mean for an enterprise to be ‘agile’?
Being business agile means that enterprises have the processes and, more importantly, the tools in place to ensure real visibility at the top of and throughout the organisation – tracking how work is progressing, understanding what is going on in the organization and its marketplace, having the information at hand to make the right changes when the business needs to adapt.
It is an approach that’s rapidly being adopted by businesses across the globe. Taking an agile approach enables enterprise workforces – and specifically project management teams – to adapt quickly and easily, enabling creative, out-of-the-box thinking by teams throughout the business.
Enterprises that embrace business agility often find that teams work better together, and their decision-making processes often become quicker – which may not have been possible otherwise.
The resulting innovation within teams enables companies to be nimble enough to adapt to the constantly evolving world around them and embrace opportunities that come from shifting market dynamics – especially important today as Brexit continues to cast a large shadow of uncertainty in the UK, Europe and beyond.
Why is it important to support and encourage agility within teams?
Collaborative chaos is often caused by enterprises failing to capitalise on the potential of their workforce and, at the same time, adopting silo mentalities. Compromising the collaborative potential of its workers, leaving them dispersed and disconnected.
This results in enterprises straining under the weight of clusters as workers blast information at each other instead of effectively working together.
Unfocused messages have shown to be a substantial hurdle to efficient collaboration, seriously affecting productivity and a team’s ability to meet deadlines.
This leaves enterprises lacking in the fluidity needed to quickly understand and adapt to how a marketplace is changing and the rapidly evolving needs of its customers.
How can digital technology solve collaboration chaos?
In order to break down the barriers preventing collaboration, it is critical for teams to share and agree KPIs, tools, workflows, processes and policies.
Deploying technologies that promote more effective communication and collaboration across teams, business units and geographies is critical to enabling true business agility.
Employing end-to-end digital tools and collaborative software allow workers to have full visibility across tasks, resources, deadlines and key deliverables, helping to tie communication to a specific task and empowering teams to work together to coordinate workflow, track progress, align goals, allocate budget in order to meet specific deadlines.
There are steps key players in project management and company leaders can take to build collaboration and business agility.
Best practices that company leaders and managers can implement
Project managers and company leaders can take a number of different best practice steps to ensure they are fulfilling the potential of their workforce and in turn perform in the best possible way in today’s fast-changing, technology-driven marketplace.
With many enterprises facing more uncertainties and greater organizational challenges than ever before, harnessing collaborative chaos is critical to their continued success.
Fostering better communication, cooperation and agility results in informed, empowered teams that understand what needs to be done and contribute more effectively to becoming a truly agile enterprise.
To learn more about how cloud-based work management tools help foster workplace collaboration while boosting workflow, efficiency and business agility, you can go to www.clarizen.com. Or try our free trial here: https://www.clarizen.com/free-trial/
