Speaker 1: Conflicts and miscommunication can bring your project down quickly and the best way to handle this is to get really good team collaboration and in this video I'm going to share with you five tips that you need to have great team collaboration. Documentation is not a one-way street and if you're going to have team collaboration you need to make sure that your documents actually behave in a collaborative mode. Now those who know me well from a project management standpoint of actual projects that I worked on and in the study course I'm a big believer in the work breakdown structure or action plan because it's not just about all the tasks that we are looking at it's a collaborative tool to provide communication updates and it really gets everyone accountable to what they're going to do and that's a big part of having a collaborative team when teams understand very clearly what's expected from them and they're communicating to you regarding that. And another part of that too is a single project site. I like to use SharePoint as my project site and I have everything in there that they need to be successful. All of the documentation that they need access to, any version controls, project information, again making sure from a collaborative standpoint they know where to go. One-stop shop to get the information so they can be successful because again their success is the project success is my success as a project manager. So it really is important not to have things as a one-way street but it's a two-way street of pulling information, pushing information, people going to what they need to go to but communicating big time because that is going to be really key for your team's collaboration. Identify your early adopters. This is really important for team collaboration because I promise you when you're starting out a project you're going to have some individuals who are really excited to be on the team and in the project and then you're going to have other people who are not quite sure if this is the right thing that the company should be doing taking on this particular project. So it becomes really important from a team collaboration standpoint to really identify those two groups. You're not going to divide them. What you're going to do is you're going to bring them together. How? By really focusing on your early adopters, understanding their excitement and by bringing those in who are maybe not so excited as the early adopters as to find out what their issues and concerns are. Find out why, the why, they feel that way and ensure that you know with your project you bring everyone together and you discuss those things so you can get everybody on that same page. Before we go into the next tip I want to bring to your attention this because this is just as important about team collaboration which is to understand how your projects potentially can fail and how can you get this. There's a link underneath this video that you can grab this copy from. Leverage small wins. Your team will be more collaborative if they feel appreciated. It really is a simple yet effective technique which is so true. Think about it yourself. When you feel appreciated you are more apt to really want to help out more even kind of go out of the items that you're responsible for to ensure that the overall deliverable of the project is successful. That is amazing collaboration where you can literally move mountains, well not literally, figuratively you can move mountains in your project and it's amazing when your whole team because of the collaboration is in performance mode. So what are some of those things like those small wins that you can start leveraging? Well if people are meeting all their deadlines acknowledge that. Just don't assume that it's their job. Really have some gratitude for that. If they hit a major activity and they completed it on time they got the approval acknowledge that in a group setting. You want to let them know that you see and you appreciate the hard work that they're doing because they themselves know that they're doing a lot of work and I promise you it's not just your project it's probably other projects that they're working on as well. So just leveraging those small wins over the whole life cycle of your project is going to bring your team together and they're going to be more collaborative. Ensure everyone understands the approach that you're taking to projects. What Adriana? Why is collaboration have anything to do with the approach that you're taking? Actually has everything to do with the approach you're taking in collaboration. If people are really clear with what is expected for them and how you plan on framing out this project the framework of it then it is easier for them to focus on what they need to do and to give the time needed for collaboration. So what are some of the things to consider when you have a really good project framework? One of those is what's happening at every point of the project, what they need to do individually, how their tasks impact other team members, where to get all the information they need, and how to do their part in keeping the project on track. So this becomes important because when they're very clear with that because they understand your framework they understand the expectations they have the ability energy effort and room in their own mind to start collaborating because they're not figuring out everything else. So if you don't already have a framework and approach for your project management I highly recommend that you get one. It is a game changer. Now good news is I have three options for you. I have Slay Project Management the online course, I have Slay Project Management Pro which includes the online course and weekly group coaching calls, and for organizations because I know how important this is I have a corporate program that we can put your organization through that encompasses a lot of important things for standardization. So definitely a must that you have a standard approach for all of your projects. Prioritize adaptability. This is really important for collaboration. I promise you this projects are not static. It's not that when you plan it from day one it's all going to go accordingly and never change. That's not the case and if you're going to collaborate you need to be adaptable because things are going to shift and change and guess what you're going to have to have the help of your team members to bring you to the finish line. There's going to be things that you never thought of. So it really becomes important that you have that flexibility and you teach your team members that flexibility. It's okay to make mistakes. Just make sure that you don't look at it as a negative. Look at it as a positive. Do a lot of learnings from it and again if you need change control it's okay if things change in your project. Just have some control over it with a really good one pager document. My students use that all the time to help bring that adaptability and just recognize that collaboration means going with that flow and collectively as a group what can you do to get you to the next milestone or ultimately to the finish line. So that becomes really important. All right now that you know everything about team collaboration which is really important I highly recommend that you implement these things in your project. I would like for you to look at this document and you can get it by going to the link underneath this video. I created it specifically for you about project success understanding what's going to make or break things going on in your project. So just as important as collaboration. Watch this next video on how to build trust within your teams. On that note if you enjoyed this content give it a like, subscribe to this amazing community and I'll see you at the next video.