Who Has the Remote Control?

So, how’s the lock-down working out for you? Are you managing to stay connected, focused, and tuned-in to the important goals of your business? Or, are you finding that your surroundings are not really designed for quiet reflection and problem solving?

Many people are working from home for the first time or spending a lot more time doing so. It is a big transition for organizations and presents challenges not just in terms of technology but also in individual and team behavior.

Moving from a busy open plan office where you’re in touching distance of everyone and everything you need to a cocooned in your own lounge/study/kitchen/shed changes many things. No longer can you wander over to accounting to check whether payments have gone through; or drop by procurement to get a quick price check on important supplies for a rush job. It is only when you’re removed from people do you realize how much productive interaction you rely upon to get your work done.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been remote working most weeks for some years now, so I’ve created a quiet corner within which to work and have developed the self-discipline of structuring my day and planning my time around video conferences.

These last few weeks have been a bit of a revelation in the sheer number of video conferences I’ve been on with external providers. But what is more surprising is the varying degree of usefulness of these things. Some are structured well, with a clear and shared definition of outcomes and kept on track by well-organized facilitators. Sadly, these are few and far between in what feels like a series of ad-hoc, goalless, free-for-alls that achieve little.

Therein lies the challenge of remote working. Goals and purpose need to be communicated effectively for collaborative efforts to be productive. While the technology has improved in terms of simplified user interfaces, video, and screen sharing, platforms like Teams, Zoom, Skype, or similar do not address the issue of purpose.

Purpose is typically communicated using different toolsets. Plans are drawn up in Excel and emailed to project team members beforehand. Progress updates and the chasing of tasks are done via email or instant messaging, which disconnects them from the work. This is where OpusView is different and gives you back the control and focus needed when your project team is not physically collocated.

As the demand for remote working rapidly increases, organizations must keep employees

continuously engaged and effective with streamlined collaborative processes. Using OpusView built in secure messaging and conferencing means that meetings have a clear purpose, tasks, dependencies, and status are all easily shared. Designed from the outset to bring clarity on key outcomes, OpusView has evolved to bring together the best from the world of social collaborative tools into a single platform that ensures no information is lost, teams function in concert, and activities are aligned to achieving goals.

Hopefully, these challenging times will ease in the coming weeks and businesses will once again be able to work in familiar ways, but the challenge of effective project delivery won’t go-away. It is likely that businesses and individuals will see that there are benefits to being able to work remotely. Allowing individuals to achieve a better work/life balance has become a key factor in employee attraction/retention.

Why not take a look at OpusView in between your next meetings to see how you can get back control? www.opusview.com.