How do we transition to a new, collaborative way of working?

Hello Pamela,

Interesting case you have. I will give you an advice based on the following: People are different, and each of those 10 people will have their own preferred way of learning how to operate the new software. Having that in mind, some would love it for someone else to show them how to work with the software, and some would hate it. There are two approaches you can incorporate (you can also do both):

1. The team is small enough so that you can ask them for an opinion on what is their preferred way for learning how to work with the software (being left to explore, or explained to detail by someone else). After you get their opinions it will be a bit easier for you to decide. This will also make the team feel good because you are asking for their own opinion and are not just deciding by yourself;

2. If you do not feel like it is a good idea to ask them, then I would say do the following - do not go into extremes (super controlled way of learning, or leaving them to explore everything themselves) but find the golden middle ground. 

2.1. That middle ground can be, for instance, doing a short workshop that explains the basics and gives floor for a Q&A session. In that way the people who like to be taught (not exploring by themselves) will get their chance and time to ask questions, while the people who like to explore will have the basics and will not get frustrated by a controlled way of learning. 

Hope this was helpful! Good luck!

Lilyana

 

Hi Pamela,

I guess the best way is the easier for them, it means these tools which are used by them daily in their life. For example, Google tools as mail, calendar, hangout, docs, .... .

Also this service must change depending what country are your team, because in China Google is not the main tool used, or even in Rusia Yandex is highly powerfull.

Finally, I recommend you that one person in team get the control in your corporative internal communication, other way the people can use uncorrectly this kind of info.

I hope to help you with my notes.

Best regards.

Javier Ramirez

www.GetYourInnovation.com

Hello, I have personally managed this typr of problem as a large Programme with some 5,000 people, across GB, organised into a number of business specific groupings.

We trialled the approach where some business functions were given a structured approach to follow and some business functions were allowed latitude to explore and expand how they used the new platforms.

Our findings were, that the people given a structured basis to use the platforms derived the highest benefit from it, as they had an awareness off what the platforms could do and then went off and started creating content, wikis, document sharing etc etc.

So based on that experience I would suggest that you offer a structured basis for how the platform can be used, this will give all your users a standardised basis on what can be done with the platform and then let choose the best ways to use it to meet the current/future business needs for collaborative working and information sharing.