Teamwork

Teamwork is not an invention of the past couple of years. Most teams have developed methods to handle the collaboration needs of the group. Many organizations still use paper-based systems. Paper documents are photocopied and circulated for review. Individuals suggest changes and corrections, which are forwarded to one person. Meetings are held in person—people sometimes fly

thousands of miles for meetings, everyone takes notes, and some people dominate the group discussions. Many people still rely on e-mail to send versions of documents.

Someday, people will look back and consider these systems to be quaint and inefficient. Teamwork revolves around two fundamental concepts: communication and collaboration. Teammates need to communicate on many topics, and several communicationmethods are available today. One challenge is to choose the right communication method for each problem.

Collaboration entails working together. Today, that means sharing electronic documents and tracking the revisions made to each document. More than simply combining changes, it also involves discussing why the changes were made. Collaboration also involves scheduling tasks and maintaining project schedules. Software tools have existed for several years to help with the basic communication and collaboration tasks. The strengths of today’s tools are the integration and focus on teamwork.