Your team’s communication is breaking down. How can you use technology to bridge the gap?

When your team's communication resembles a game of telephone gone wrong, it's time to enhance it. To start, Slack or Microsoft Teams serve as virtual gathering places. They go beyond just sharing memes; they facilitate ideas and the swift resolution of problems. Additionally, project management tools like Asana, Trello, or Monday.com function as a GPS-- ensuring that everyone stays on track and that tasks, deadlines, and updates are not lost in the void. Implementing tools requires more than just plugging them in and hoping for the best. It involves fostering a culture where technology acts as a bridge rather than a barrier. Regular tech check-ins, training sessions, and a willingness to accept feedback can help work in your favor.

Embracing the digital era is crucial in the modern work landscape, especially in a hybrid workplace that seamlessly integrates physical and online elements. Technology becomes the linchpin for efficient and accessible communication. Recognizing the diversity in team preferences, it's essential to identify tools that resonate with each team. For instance, the development team might prefer Slack, while the marketing team opts for LINE. The key lies in achieving a consensus on the tools that cater to diverse needs within the team, ensuring smooth and effective collaboration.

It's ironic how the very tools we rely on to connect us can sometimes end up overwhelming us with notifications or even create a sense of disconnect. I've noticed this in my own experiences. It's about striking the right balance. Using tech smartly but not letting it take over the personal, human side of things.

Try to avoid hybrid meetings as much as possible. Unfortunately, it often creates a feeling of execution for the people online if there is also a room full of people. In such cases, it may be better to have everyone participate online, and adapt the tools accordingly in the form of a white screen and the like, to which all participants have access.

Quanto menos reunião melhor, quanto mais automação melhor. Existem ferramentas que possibilitam a notificação automática, por exemplo, em alguns fluxos quando um desenvolvedor termina uma tarefas, ao mudar o status para DONE por exemplo, a ferramenta já comunica a equipe de QA para que sejam realizados testes ... sem mesmo se comunicar com o DEV. Caso o nível de maturidade da equipe seja baixa e a comunicação é muito intensa, certifique de promover uma comunicação eficaz e clara com a equipe e que cada um seja protagonista na hora de falar, todos tem que ter claro que podem se expressar. Deixe claro que a comunicação é primordial para o sucesso da equipe.

para uma comunicação efetiva da equipe é importante que se mantenha reuniões de follow up periódicas, semanalmente ou mensalmente de acordo com a necessidade, para que toda a equipe tenha uma visão macro do que está acontecendo. Outra solução para integração de informações é um software que seja atualizado em tempo real para todos, e dispare apenas notifcações relevantes para sua função, ao invés de encher a caixa de email de todos, fazendo com que se perca as informações de fato relevantes.

Briefly, - understand the psychology of meetings: too long and people zone out, without clear outcomes specified prior or at the beginning of the meeting, engagement is killed. Too many meetings will kill uninterrupted autonomous work, and so outcomes are not achieved. - Know your team's culture of work, how autonomous, how responsive online, how many meetings they're committed to. - Tech-savviness in using communication tools. Tips: - Establish simple, regular and executable cadences with team members and the team. And keep the time commitment minimal. Doing so will remove pressure of synchronous work and line manager surveillance. - Communications outcomes and desired deadlines with improve asynchronous work.

It makes the world smaller and can save large travel expenses, just as it makes it possible to participate in meetings across continents with just a single click of the mouse, but it is also important to meet whenever possible to build relationships and trust, among other things. Because when you meet online, you miss many of the important signals that are part of your body language

The ease of access and plethora of tools out there can overwhelm focus, distract, and consume mental energy that can be allocated to more business value-add tasks.