What is Team Collaboration? The Complete Guide

What is Team Collaboration? The Evolving Definition

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What is Team Collaboration?
CollaborationInsights

Published: January 15, 2024

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

What is team collaboration? On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. Team collaboration is a phrase used to refer to how groups work together towards a shared goal. But there’s more to team collaboration than you might think, particularly in 2024.

Today, effective team collaboration relies on more than just ensuring people can connect and share ideas. Team collaboration is becoming a diverse and multi-faceted concept in a world of distributed workers, hybrid and remote employees, and evolving technology trends.

Collaboration now happens in various environments, from office neighborhoods to virtual platforms, and it occurs in many different ways.

Let’s answer the question, “What is team collaboration?” for businesses in 2024.

What is Team Collaboration? Defining Collaboration

To answer the question “What is team collaboration?” we first need to define collaboration. Collaboration involves individuals and groups working together towards a common objective or goal. These people contribute diverse skills, perspectives, and ideas to a project.

Notably, collaboration isn’t the same as teamwork. Both concepts require a group of people to be working towards a common goal. However, teamwork is an umbrella term involving different people making contributions.

Collaboration is when people share tasks on a deeper level, discovering solutions together. For example, a team working on an email marketing project might use teamwork to distribute tasks among employees. One might write the content, another might schedule the campaign, etc. In a collaborative setting, everyone would work together on the same tasks.

Multiple people would contribute to the whole process of writing, scheduling, and distributing the campaign. Everyone has a part to play in every task.

What is Team Collaboration? The Basics

So, what is team collaboration? Team collaboration is when people with complementary skills and abilities work on projects in a connected, collective way. It’s all about joint effort and shared responsibility. On a broad scale, it’s an approach to project management in a business.

The hallmarks of this approach include equal participation from all involved individuals in each stage of the work progress and shared responsibility.

In the past, team collaboration often relied heavily on people being in close proximity to each other. People needed to physically interact physically in real time to share tasks and knowledge. While face-to-face collaboration is still beneficial, there are other ways to collaborate.

Hybrid and remote working styles have prompted a need for technologies and tools that align distributed employees for collaborative work. Hence, there is the rise of solutions like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Cisco Webex. Additionally, changes to how we work have led to different styles of collaboration becoming more prevalent, such as asynchronous and synchronous.

With synchronous collaboration, people work together in real time, either in physical space or via communication apps. With asynchronous collaboration, interactions are staggered. For instance, people might collaborate on shared documents at different times of the day.

Why is Team Collaboration Important?

The most common question followed by “What is team collaboration?” is “Why is it necessary?” After all, companies can function without collaboration, provided they have teamwork. However, collaboration is valuable. Collaborative teams are more motivated, innovative, and efficient.

Unfortunately, a study from Harvard Business Review found that while 80% of business leaders view collaboration as essential, only 20% are satisfied with how it happens.

Enabling team collaboration can be difficult, particularly in today’s distributed workplace. However, investing in partnership drives powerful results, such as:

  • Enhanced productivity: Employees work up to 15% faster when collaborating, solve problems more effectively, and feel more engaged.
  • Improved experiences: Collaborative teams are happier. The connections they make with their colleagues and the support they get at work make them more satisfied in their roles.
  • Innovation: Diverse teams of collaborative workers contribute to different perspectives and insights in projects. This leads to greater innovation and creativity.

Team collaboration can even improve staff well-being and help businesses attract top talent. After all, a collaborative workplace contributes to a positive company culture where everyone feels heard, respected, and invested in the workplace.

What is Team Collaboration? The Components of Collaboration

Various components are required to facilitate team collaboration. Just because you have employees working together doesn’t mean they’re actively collaborating. In today’s world, the elements of team collaboration break down into a few key areas:

Clarity and Transparency

Collaboration is about working together towards a shared goal, with a consistent set of values and an ethos of shared responsibility. To accomplish this, teams need clarity on the objectives they’re trying to reach. Plus, every staff member needs to understand their role in the team.

Similarly, transparency is crucial to ensure everyone remains informed and feels equally respected in their role. People need to be able to communicate openly and honestly throughout a project to ensure everyone can work seamlessly together.

Communication

Communication and collaboration are intrinsically linked. If people can’t communicate effectively, they can’t collaborate either. Good communication in a workplace doesn’t just depend on people’s skills for sharing information clearly and concisely.

It’s also reliant on the tools companies use to facilitate communication, particularly among distributed teams. Platforms like Microsoft Teams that support messaging, video conferencing, calling, and more ensure people can communicate clearly as they work.

Team Management

The success of team collaboration often relies heavily on the culture and processes of a business. Team-focused leaders must be committed to bringing people together, demonstrating the value of collaboration, and leading by example. They must find ways to engage and unify teams, wherever they are, and build relationships between staff.

Leaders who excel at facilitating team collaboration are constantly looking for ways to unify their workers, whether it’s through group video meetings or team-building exercises. They also know how to address conflict and manage issues within team environments.

Adaptability

Team collaboration works best when people from various environments share distinct insights and perspectives. This requires a level of adaptability. People need to be open to new ideas and new ways of working. Staff need to be willing to accept suggestions and feedback from their peers. This paves the way for stronger working relationships.

Additionally, in today’s world, people must be open to exploring new collaboration, like working together in a physical meeting room or communicating over the cloud. Going forward, businesses may even need to be willing to embrace new forms of immersive collaboration with the rise of extended reality and the metaverse.

Collaboration Software and Technology

Team collaboration software has become an essential part of the workplace today. Even as companies implement return-to-office mandates, hybrid and remote work demand continues.

This means businesses need to access the software that will facilitate collaboration between dispersed teams. This software includes everything from communication tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack to project management tools like Monday.com or Asana. Collaboration tools can encompass numerous features, from virtual whiteboards to screen and file-sharing capabilities.

The technology used for collaboration can also include various forms of hardware, from video conferencing systems and meeting room kits to extended reality devices.

What is Team Collaboration in 2024? The Emerging Trends

Answering the question “What is team collaboration?” can be more complex than it seems. The world of work is constantly changing, and how we define collaboration changes along with it.

In 2024, companies are discovering new opportunities in the rise of the metaverse and extended reality to help connect distributed teams and facilitate collaborative work. Solutions like Microsoft Teams Immersive Spaces and Horizon Workrooms are becoming more common.

While it’s difficult to know precisely what the future of collaboration will bring, there are a few trends companies should be aware of today.

1.      The Transformation of Team Dynamics

As mentioned above, team collaboration brings people together in a shared physical environment to work on projects. Even as return to office mandates grow in 2024, flexibility is still a key trend in the workplace.

Hybrid and remote work, office neighborhoods, and other flexible working strategies will force companies to rethink how they answer “What is team collaboration?” In 2024 and beyond, teams will work across various environments and rely on multiple tools and resources to connect with colleagues both synchronously and asynchronously.

Companies are investing in new types of hybrid meeting rooms, immersive technologies, and advanced collaboration software to improve relationships between distributed teams.

2.      Evolving Team Collaboration Tools

Team collaboration tools, such as platforms like Microsoft Teams for communication, Asana for project tracking, and Zoom for video conferencing, remain crucial today. However, in 2024, there’s a growing demand to consolidate business technologies.

72% of workers say using collaborative tools is essential to their productivity, but many spend too much time jumping between apps. As a result, collaborative solutions are becoming more advanced, unifying various communication methods with file sharing, whiteboarding, and even CCaaS tools.

Integrations for collaboration platforms are also becoming more advanced, allowing companies to bring various tools used for collaborative work into a single pane of glass. Plus, innovations, like Immersive spaces and XR, are redefining how we connect.

3.      Increasing Focus on Employee Engagement

While the answer to “what is team collaboration” might be “people working in alignment,” the answer to “what is effective collaboration” is much more complicated. For teams to work together efficiently, they must be engaged and supported.

Employee experience is crucial to positive collaboration. If certain people don’t feel supported or included in the workplace, they won’t deliver the same value to each project. New expectations in the workplace will require a deeper focus on keeping employees engaged.

This is one of the reasons we’ve begun to see the rise of things like Microsoft Viva, which helps companies keep their finger on the pulse of employee experiences and improve engagement. It’s also why companies invest in more tools to optimize employee experiences, like metaverse environments where teams can connect and interact with a virtual world.

4.      Team Collaboration and AI

One of the significant ways the answer to “What is team collaboration?” has changed in recent years is that “teams” are no longer exclusively made up of human employees. AI solutions like Microsoft Copilot and Google Duet are expanding the definition of “team” to include AI tools.

Studies show that around 88% of companies are already using generative AI in some way today. AI can be an incredible tool for facilitating team collaboration. It can improve the quality of meetings by transcribing and translating content in real time or optimizing scheduling.

AI can also eliminate distractions from video meetings, improve the quality of calls, and act as an assistant for teams working on projects together.

Optimizing Team Collaboration in 2024

At this point, you should have a comprehensive answer to “what team collaboration” means in 2024. The next step is ensuring you have a strategy to optimize collaboration. Here are some of our top tips for better team collaboration in today’s world.

1.      Identify Barriers to Team Collaboration

Numerous barriers can prevent good team collaboration from taking place. Meta even found that 40% of employees believe their organization’s employees aren’t collaborating enough. When implementing your collaboration strategy, look for common issues that can harm collaborative work.

Barriers might include a lack of buy-in or understanding from business leaders about the importance of collaboration. Alternatively, your company might be struggling from a lack of communication between distributed teams. Identifying barriers will help you find the tools and resources to support more effective collaborative work in your business.

2.      Create a Collaboration Strategy

Agreeing on a collaboration strategy is essential to ensure everyone is on the same page in your organization. Ask yourself what kind of workforce you’re running and which resources and tools you’ll use to support your teams. Will you rely heavily on a solution like Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex? How will you organize meetings and support asynchronous work?

Set goals and targets for your collaboration strategy. Are you investing in specific new solutions for collaboration, such as artificial intelligence or extended reality? It’s also essential to focus on finding ways to facilitate knowledge sharing. Around 80% of business leaders say capturing and sharing people’s insights is crucial to business success.

3.      Reward and Optimize Collaboration

Team collaboration is about more than just people working together. The success of your strategy depends heavily on your company culture. With this in mind, it’s worth ensuring all your team members can see the benefits of good collaboration. Reward team members who demonstrate a commitment to collaborating with their colleagues.

Think carefully about how you can optimize collaborative strategies over time. This could mean collecting feedback from team members about the issues they face. Or it could mean tracking how people collaborate via meeting tools, chat, and other resources to determine what collaboration looks like for your business and how you can improve it.

Mastering Team Collaboration in 2024

Here, we’ve answered the question “What is team collaboration?”, identified the trends in the current landscape, and defined why collaboration is so essential to success. It’s worth noting that as the world evolves, how we define and enable team collaboration will also transform.

In the years ahead, businesses will need to be ready to adapt to evolving trends in the collaborative landscape and ensure their teams can thrive wherever they may be.

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