I was able to experience team collaboration in a previous project management role.
I witnessed the potential for success when a team focuses on a goal and charts a path to success across multiple time zones and countries.
In just two months, productivity grew by 320%.
The business had three times the number of clients in a year.
We hired four contractors, and fired two.
We created a weekly team call that kept everyone on the same page regarding weekly tasks and goals.
Without team collaboration, both individuals and businesses can’t function. It’s what allows organizations to create useful tools and make the world better.
However, it is often overlooked the downsides of team collaboration. Many times, what we call “collaboration”, is actually a waste.
Is team collaboration a waste?
Teams lose hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars under the guise “collaboration”.
We’ve written about the dangers of wasting time in meetings in other articles on TeamGantt’s blog. Meetings are not the only thing that can steal our valuable work hours.
One Gallup article argues that low trust among team members can lead inevitably to ineffective collaboration. How can productive interaction on a project be possible if team members aren’t trustworthy?
We believe that collaboration is possible if there is a large, diverse, multi-disciplinary team. As a Harvard Business Review discussion points, these same four characteristics make it difficult for teams to accomplish anything.
PGI.com identifies five of the most common “dysfunctions” in team collaboration, as discussed by Patrick Lencioni, a business author and leader.
Trust is absent
Fear of conflict
Inability to commit
Avoidance of accountability
Inattention to the results
Collaboration can lead to team dysfunction and a loss of effectiveness. It is not possible to eliminate collaboration. The solution is to improve it so it works the way it should. This means bringing people together, focusing in on goals and achieving greater good.
Here are three major ways team collaboration can go wrong. These pitfalls will be highlighted and I will offer some suggestions on how to avoid them.
Side note: I won’t address team psychology dynamics, but rather the more tactical and technical issues of collaboration.
Collaboration is always “on.” Individual contribution suffers.
Many of the technologies that enable collaboration are always on.
I was able to chase down an aggressive deadline on Tuesday morning for a project that was looming. I was able to complete the project in one hour, which was a very difficult time frame.
As I settled down to finish the project, a Slack notification appeared on my phone and then on my computer. Ding! Ding!
Enter Objectivius Shinium Syndromus. (Shiny Object Syndrome)
All the concentration power I had summoned to work on The Looming project vanished, like the steam rising from my freshly brewed cup of coffee.
Slack caught my attention. I think the person at the other end of the Slack discussion had my interest (all because I hadn’t disabled my Slack notifications).
Sometimes, our desire to collaborate is actually a distraction.
It can be detrimental to individual contributions if teams insist on being in collaboration mode, responding to emails, IMs, or chats.
If you have ever felt frustrated by the inability to complete your “own stuff”, or if you feel guilty about not responding to an IM, or email immediately, then you know what I am talking about.
Always-on “collaborati
