From the moment you start your project, collaborating with a team becomes a must, because, without it, no project can be completed. In this blog, we will see the 8 steps to improve project collaboration between teams.

“Great things in business are never done alone, they’re done by a team,” Steve Jobs. The lesson about teamwork is essential to remember that in a professional world, where a lack of collaboration sometimes leads to disaster.

Project collaboration takes place when a group of people with different project Management skills and expertise work together to tackle a single project. The decision-making process involves everyone in the collaborative group and has access to all the information. Whether there are well-defined roles or not is based on the project management methodology you use.

However, one thing is certain; everybody involved has a clear picture ahead of them and works together from categorization to the final stages of the project.

Why Project Collaboration Is Important?

From the moment you start your project, collaborating with a team becomes a must, because, without it, no project can be completed. Learning how to cultivate a culture of collaboration should be one of your top goals if you want to be a successful project manager.

Project teams typically consist of people from different backgrounds and methods. Also, most experienced managers often struggle to deal effectively with them. Many projects fail – about 33% of them – due to a lack of interest on the part of the involved parties. It not only affects morale, it also affects how the market perceives your organization.

How To Ensure Effective Collaboration Between Project Teams

With multiple deadlines creeping and pressure from management or customers, you may lose sight of your ambition to maintain a collaborative atmosphere.

We’ve identified 8 necessary steps that you can take to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

1. Improve Communication Within The Team

The first and foremost challenge for you is to strengthen the way you and your team communicate. Proper communication in project management functions as a bridge that keeps a project team together and can make or break the project.

According to the Workplace Productivity and Communications Technology Survey, about 67% of professionals spend an average of 6 out of 9 hours communicating at work. These statistics show how important communication is to any company and the difference you can make by maximizing it.

2. Be As Transparent As Possible

Project transparency is another path that decides whether you want to become a successful leader or someone who only has the title of leader. There is no good reason, apart from sensitive and personal data, for you to hide any data from your team. If the team has a clear idea of what they are trying to do and the current position, they will work harder and feel motivated to get the job done.

Read 3 Must-Have Project Management Tools for Startups

3. Get Everyone Involved

Everyone must be involved in the decision-making process if you want to achieve a higher level of collaboration in your projects. When everyone is involved, original ideas develop, and members learn from each other collectively. This phenomenon not only increases your overall performance but also leads to the growth of your team.

4. Encourage Members Who Take The Initiative

It’s hard to be the first person to do something or to come up with a different way that goes against existing practices. You need to promote a culture of creativity where members who take the initiative to do something more efficiently are encouraged.

For managers, people like that are an asset because they’re going to be the first to accept innovative changes and new policies that you introduce wholeheartedly.

5. Get Rid Of The Walls

It might sound cliché, but eliminating physical obstacles between your team will bring them together and make it easier for them to communicate. Also, some managers seem to have an open-door policy to make themselves more available. Such non-verbal messages are important because teams operate more effectively if they feel assured that they can ask for assistance in the case that they cannot complete a task on their own.

Also, read 8 Communication and Collaboration Platforms for Your Startups 

6. Optimize Office Meetings

If your daily meetings have become monotonous and something you’re scared of, it’s time to change things. Unnecessarily long sessions demotivate everyone and waste valuable time. Your meetings must have a pre-defined agenda that must be followed by everyone. Submit detailed progress reports and status updates before the meetings.

Doing this ensures that each participant already knows the current status of the project and that you don’t waste time on tiring updates.

7. Keep Your Team Happy And Motivated

A happy and motivated team performs much better in every situation. Taking the time to get the staff engaged in fun events and celebrating key milestones is a perfect way to motivate the team.

Some managers often take the extra mile to try to introduce some humor in various scenarios to maintain a stress-free working atmosphere.

8. Use Project Collaboration Tools

Modern projects are complex and cannot be effectively managed with simple spreadsheets. To keep on top of things, you need the right tools to help you share updates, files, and other information. Tools that can help in collaboration and management are also essential for success.

Multiple organizations have reported significant increases in productivity and success rates and are crediting their project collaboration tools for this. Various tools that focus on a single management feature are available on the market. The best scenario for you will be to find a single tool that can perform all of the above tasks.

Improve Project Team Collaboration With Restyaboard

If you’re looking to improve project collaboration among your team members, Restyaboard can be helpful. It serves as the central hub for all your communications. Team members can see what the others are working on, enabling transparency. You can share files and contextual comments on tasks and projects. Start using Restyaboard for free today.