Collaborative strategy: the 3 pitfalls to avoid
Change Management Consultant
The IT department of a company has several missions, one of which is to offer collaborative services adapted to the new ways of working and employee needs. So what exactly is this new working environment?
Collaborative strategy in a changing world
Team life and management are gradually changing. Our spaces are opening up and becoming more and more flexible. Devices, our daily allies, are bound to evolve considerably over the next few years, to adapt to new working methods. All of our daily tools are now found on our laptop or smartphone, which must be ever more efficient and secure.
To respond to this change, some companies have decided to embark on the O365 adventure, for example. But beware of certain pitfalls.
Pitfall No. 1: forgetting to onboard the entire company
This project absolutely must be a company-wide initiative, making the collaborative solution much more than a mere IT project. Involving all of the company’s major departments and all of the management boards boosts the collaborative project’s reputation and effectiveness. The company and its stakeholders must then set the example by becoming spokespersons, ambassadors and consumers of the tools.
This stage is necessary if we want widespread, uniform and sustainable adoption by all employees.
It is a company project in its own right because it involves a cultural change, new working habits, a massive training plan, and a review of team organisation and processes.
Pitfall No. 2: forgetting about change management
By its very nature, collaborative solutions like O365 offer undeniable advantages: “ATAWAY” and “up to day” are de rigueur. This makes users happy and enriches their experience.
Before the new services can be used, there is a migration stage: content, tools, etc. – everything has to go through this phase to end up in this new collaborative environment.
This migration cannot be a mere IT process. You must conduct a change management strategy from the start of the project and thus involve the business lines and employees in order to raise their awareness, study functional impacts, and identify future collaborative uses.
Pitfall No. 3: increasing the number of tools without thinking about usage
As there are a great many collaborative tools, you must define the main rules of use for a better user experience. Who accesses what, where and how? Which tool for which use? How do you differentiate the usefulness of Yammer, versus teams or SharePoint?
The uses of each tool will very quickly find their place and also respond to the constraints of the company’s data security policy.
Pour conclure
We can only say YES to the collaborative adventure! But don’t forget the principles of change management and user experience in order to successfully adopt these new uses and reap the benefits for the company !