The Formula 1 championship is one of the most fiercely competitive sports worldwide. To get the final victory teams engage in neck-and-neck battles. To be successful, these teams are built on a robust and hyper-efficient collaboration model. For instance, when it’s time for the pit stop, every millisecond counts. The team must interact efficiently with a robust and efficient toolkit.
“Aerodynamics are for those who can’t build engines”
Enzo Ferrari
In part one of this post, I reflected on how companies can unlock business value by investing in an effective collaboration model. I pointed out how it could look at its return on the investment.
A successful collaboration model requires a robust toolkit. In part two, I will share my experience assembling a collaborative toolkit. In my past experiences, I based the collaboration models on four tools. Confluence, Jira, Figma, and Miro are the pillars of envisioning, documenting, delivering and maintaining successful digital experiences.
Documentation, project management and design are critical topics. They are essential to me when I design a collaboration model. To get these three areas covered, teams need a toolkit to rely on. They need it to encourage individual contributors to feel safe to exchange to foster a collaboration-driven environment. When evaluating toolkit performances, I only look at one indicator, the adoption rate. It’s imperative that all the team members adopt each tool consistently to get the most out of it.
Documentation
Documenting project stages is crucial for teams to show vital signs of commitment and accountability. Documentation helps track progress, identify potential issues, and communicate effectively with team members and stakeholders. In addition, documenting project stages can help to create a knowledge repository that can be used in future projects, saving time and resources. I consider Confluence critical for a collaborative toolkit. It is a powerful tool for creating and sharing project knowledge across business units and teams. Primarily, it allows team members to be highly responsive in sharing the project state with senior managers.
Project management
From the moment teams start collaborating, the to-do lists pile up. It can be overwhelming, especially when teams have multiple projects to manage. A proper project management activity can help teams tame their to-do list and go from chaos to clarity. The expected outcome is for the project contributors to trust and protect each other. The goodwill of streamlining tasks, prioritising projects, and keeping everything on track needs support in terms of tooling. In my opinion, Jira is the best tool to “slice the elephant”. The way it provides a project overview is very straightforward. With it, teams can set priorities, manage tasks, and track real-time progress. Combined with the proper techniques and rituals, I find Jira a critical tool to support teams to stay organised and productive.
Design toolkit
Design thinking and design collaboration tools can help teams speak the same language, overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. As a designer by education and trade, I have always loved using design tools for most of my daily tasks. However, with the advent of fantastic software that helps teams to be more design-driven, even accidental designers can unlock their creativity in solving complex problems with outstanding options.
Combined with other tools, the design ones can significantly enhance the collaboration model. Thanks to their capacity to facilitate discussions among team members and stakeholders. The most visible benefit of this combo is its ability to break down silos within teams. By fostering communication and transparency, they allow team members to work together in real time, share ideas, and build on each other’s strengths.
The essential design tools the Vorwerk International Experience Design Team relies on are Figma and Miro. I don’t need to explain the great features these two tools provide. For our team, they are essential because they bring inclusion, a shallow learning curve, and a solid motivation to experiment with the power of visual communication with the folks using them.
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, Confluence, Jira, Figma, and Miro are the four cornerstones of efficient and effective team collaboration. However, we must not limit ourselves to any particular tool when designing our collaboration model. The best toolkit is the one that is tailored to meet the unique needs of our team and organization while being easily accessible, scalable, and sustainable. Together, we can work towards achieving our goals and creating a brighter future.
Caveats and feedback
These are my reflections. I would love your feedback.
What does the toolkit that enables your organization to collaborate look like? Did you find better toolkits?
Image credits
N.A.