An experience IT industry leader gives six steps that any team can follow to create a more collaborative and efficient working environment.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. The sudden move to fully remote work has accelerated plenty of changes in the way companies operate. Chief among those shifts has been an increased reliance on different collaboration methods. And, behind the scenes, many organizations have leaned more heavily on DevOps-type practices to keep a remote workforce running smoothly. Organizations that have implemented or extended DevOps processes and found new ways to collaborate are closer than their competitors to collaboration nirvana. How can others follow in their footsteps? Here are the six steps to collaboration nirvana. Many companies leverage collaboration tools. But collaboration nirvana requires that companies develop a team culture and collaboration practices around communication. It’s not enough to simply implement a collaboration platform. Leaders can consider making collaboration a more interactive experience. Inviting everyone to join collaboration platforms by personalizing, or even gamifying, the process can be a good way to build this culture. Encourage team members to post screenshots or code snippets or other items they’re working on. See if your company culture can consider participation in collaboration activities, like a cooperative board game. Get everyone onto the platform discussing timely topics and solving problems together. Have fun with custom emojis and gifs and create off-topic forums for water cooler discussions. With collaboration part of company culture, the entire team will be inclined toward making progress together every day as collaboration becomes easier and more fluid. Once centralized collaboration becomes comfortable and part of the company culture, branch out to different facets of the organization. Communication is crucial for crisis management and solving tough problems. Communication is also key to many DevOps workflows, such as incident response or code deployment. In many cases, clever organizations can automate parts of the collaboration process for many different use cases. For example, automated alerts from DevOps tools reduce the risk of missed notifications, cut down on manual work, and prevent context switching.
