Does your company know how to gain from collaboration technologies?

Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Asana, Slack, Trello - these applications have revolutionized business operations worldwide. Thanks to them, the best companies were not only able to survive the shock of pandemic lockdowns but also used this time to develop, save on operational costs, and capture new markets.

Properly utilised, collaboration technologies are the most productive tools for building enterprise value and competitive advantage in the markets, according to the latest report from Vienna Insurance Group on the condition and plans of Polish companies.

However, ineptly implemented applications have the opposite effect. Many organizations struggle with modern applications. Instead of benefiting from using Zoom, Slack, or Asana, they lose.

Some are unable to tackle implementation, and their employees are inundated with emails and messages on Messenger or WhatsApp. Others drown in a sea of unnecessary software that, instead of facilitating communication, wastes employees' time. Tasks are assigned in various systems; conversations occur simultaneously across multiple communicators. Employees spend an increasing amount of time searching for conversations across different tools.

Tech Overload - What Is It?

Information overload is a problem faced not only at work. The internet and mobile technologies have opened up instant access to information and entertainment from around the world, but our brains are not adapted for this. Common reasons for this modern-day ailment, which paralyses employees, include:

• too many stimuli and information;
• too many IT tools;
• too many choices - micro-decisions e.g., which tool to use to contact a colleague or to search for information necessary for work;
• poorly defined processes in organisations.

This disease is increasingly a problem for businesses. Here are a few examples of the costs of poor selection or use of collaboration tools:

• a study conducted in three leading American companies showed that employees switched between apps and websites 1,200 times a day, spending four hours a week on this activity. Additionally, employees lose over 20 minutes a day refocusing on a task;
• about half an hour a day is taken up making decisions about which technology to choose for communication and managing their task.
• knowledge sector employees spend 84 minutes a day searching for information related to their tasks. And additionaly 57 minutes to switch between apps.
• 64% of employees say they are exhausted from using collaboration technologies.
• 41% claim they serve more to increase supervisors' oversight than productivity.
• 37% believe that no one really knows how to use these technologies effectively. Information or application overload for managing work and communication is not only counterproductive but also carries a significant risk of discouraging key employees.

How to Protect Against This?

First and foremost, determine whether your organisation has already crossed the application overload threshold. Studies conducted by Asana show that the magic number is 15 for large companies and 11 for small and medium-sized enterprises. Each additional tool contributes to bottlenecks, misunderstandings, and disrupted work clarity.

It is crucial that the functionalities you use do not duplicate so that everyone knows which program they should use for a given task. It is important to create clear guidelines for employees on how to manage their tasks and projects, which communication channels to use in a given situation, where to store documentation, and where to look for information they need at work.

Types of Collaboration Tools

Companies have six categories of collaboration tools at their disposal:

• Business Operation Tools for traditional office backend management (Workday, SAP);
• Tools for managing work, projects, and tasks (Asana, Jira, Monday, Trello);
• Communication tools, i.e., messengers (Slack, MS Teams) and teleconferencing apps (Zoom, Google Meet);
• Data analysis tools (Tableau, Power BI, Databricks);
• Design and visualization tools (Adobe, Figma, Canva);
• Document and file management tools (Dropbox, Google Drive).

Creating a so-called technology stack, or a set of tools for your organisation, it's worth considering applications from each of these categories.

How to Distinguish Good Collaboration Tools from Bad Ones?

A good way is to use the following checklist. Check whether the programs you use:

• are easy to use;
• reliable;
• allow real-time communication;
• can be customized to the individual nature of work at a given position and the specific culture of cooperation in your organisation;
• have excellent customer support - can quickly resolve issues, find functionality.

Collaboration and technology are key in today's work environment, and choosing the right tools impacts efficiency and communication in the team. Therefore, it is worth understanding which technologies are most suitable for a particular organisation and how they can be optimized to achieve better results.

Today, we want to take a closer look at one of the tools that is perfectly suited to be the centre of work management across the company and can revolutionize the way your team collaborates.

Asana - A Way to More Effective Collaboration

Asana is a comprehensive tool for managing team work, developed over 15 years by a New York Stock Exchange-listed company from San Francisco. Asana conducted research among American companies to identify the biggest daily challenges of the modern worker in the innovation and knowledge-based economy sectors. Here they are:

• searching for information, also within the organisation;
• maintaining focus on the task at hand, which is disrupted by constant notifications from communication apps;
• overload of the organisation with technology and inappropriate selection of the application package for communication and knowledge management (collaboration technology stack);
• lack of standardization of work rules in the company, which increases chaos and a sense of inefficiency.

Asana is a work management tool designed for automation and scaling. It helps increase team productivity because it reduces the number of applications handled, meeting most of the daily needs of employees. It is intuitive, easy to use, helps maintain a high level of focus, and increases a sense of responsibility.

With proper implementation, managing projects and tasks is possible from a single system that can easily be adapted to the specifics of your organisation. Asana allows, among other things, for:

• easy definition, assigning specific tasks, and goals. Everyone knows what they are responsible for in the project and what their colleagues are doing;
• prioritising tasks, which facilitates focusing on the most important steps;
• tracking progress in task implementation, which helps adhere to deadlines;
• communication within the project, improving the exchange of information and collaboration;
• easy integration with other tools such as email, communication systems, or file-sharing applications.
• creation of rules and templates that automate manual tasks and allow for standardization of work in the company and real savings of time.

Asana creates a modern work environment in which employees show higher motivation and engagement, make quicker and better decisions, and report a higher sense of support from their employer and personal satisfaction.

Studies conducted by Asana show that employees in organisations where a work management system has not been implemented spend 1/5 of their time searching for information and trying to reach colleagues who could help them complete a given task. A case study of a Polish service company shows that within 12 months, the proper application of collaboration technologies reduced this time by 35%.

Successful Implementation of Asana - Case Study from a Warsaw-based Service Company

A company in Warsaw employs 70 people. Guests - clients and external collaborators - also use Asana. By the end of 2024, the system was used by 126 users performing between 42,000 and 73,000 actions per month.

Before Asana was implemented in the company, communication and project management were conducted using an undefined complex technological stack, and the company faced all the problems discussed in this article. The introduction of a uniform tool not only simplified management but also finally allowed analysing the activities carried out by employees to check where communication and information search were efficient and where they required improvement.

The Warsaw company focused on checking the effects of several main activities conducted in Asana:

• establishing rules and dependencies - relations between tasks and the order in which they should be carried out;
• creating multi-home tasks - one task can be assigned to several projects, and all changes and progress within this task are synchronized and visible across each project;
• comments and messages - available for all involved in the task, gathered in one place, questions, conclusions, and additional information;
• templates and forms that facilitate the standardization of tasks in the project, allowing for quick creation of similar tasks.

The effects of implementing Asana proved to be very impressive: by using automation of templates and rules, and organising project communication, the company saved as many as 63 days over the course of a year. An audit of the results was conducted a year after implementation, but productivity in the organisation and time savings continue to increase steadily, by an average of 2 percent per month.

Are You Interested in Collaboration Tools for Your Company?

Here is a list of steps you should take to create the right conditions for your employees to achieve your company's business goals:

• Define the main operational goals - reducing operational costs, improving employee productivity, increasing timeliness, or data security;
• Conduct an audit of the tools currently owned and the actual practices of their use;
• Select appropriate tools so that their functionalities and objectives do not duplicate;
• Implement and configure the operation of tools under the processes and work culture in your company;
• Conduct training for employees - teaching the team to use new solutions is key to the success of the transformation;
• Monitor effects, test and optimize solutions.

Need help? Take advantage of the experience and best practices of implementation agencies that can help you quickly and effectively select and adjust the operation of tools for your business, train your team, and support them in efficiently using new solutions.