For close to 10 years, we here at Weekdone – the leading team management software for teams – have been at the forefront of building tools to make your team shine. You can try it out for free here. Here’s what we’ve learned on the way.
There are a lot of articles out there about team communication. However, the company wide flow of information is a more dire issue. Ask yourself, “how centralized is my company’s communication system?” There are a couple of things that may stand in the way of achieving great cross-team communication. First, the distance between remote workers, or having multiple office locations. Second, the communication system you’re currently investing in isn’t fully supporting the information flow your company needs.
Also read our complete guide to organizational communication.
If you’re working at a well-established company, you’re probably dealing with a flawed system that was effective 10 years ago but isn’t cutting it today. If you’ve recently grown into a bigger operation, your system might have come about organically but just doesn’t have the adaptability and efficiency required in a growing team.
Whatever the case may be, the solution is the same. You need to divide responsibility and make sure cross-team communication works in your company. Let’s be fair, everyone has a lot to do and adapting to this asynchronistic way of communication is hard to manage. Sometimes it’s easier to point fingers instead of taking action. As a result, everyone in the team suffers. Here is our guide to help avoid this situation.
The Problem: Poor Team Communication
As a team leader there are many ways to be sure other departments get the required info needed to get the job done. But how do you convince others to do the same for you? It can be hard convincing other leaders to communicate with you.
I’ve seen it in almost every team I’ve worked in. There is a meeting. You all agree to accomplish something. Then months pass and nothing gets done. Everyone is thinking someone else should’ve done the “agreed” upon task. Yikes, now who’s blaming who?
This is not very efficient. And at the end of the day, it will fall on the team leader if projects get stuck.
The Solution: A Cross Communication System
Therefore, you should work on setting up a company wide task management and goal setting system. If you’re using a good task management application like Weekdone Team Compass, you don’t have to worry about it as much. All tasks can and should be assigned to specific individuals right away. As these are public, it’s always clear who is responsible for what – leaving a lot less work undone. As Henry Mason, Managing Director of TrendWatching told us: “Automated status reports save our managers up to 4 hours a week.”
Plans, Progress, Problems.
Weekdone uses the PPP – Plans, Progress, Problems methodology that is based on setting 3 – 7 relevent tasks each week. These are the important things employees need to get done. These can be assigned by the person themselves or by anyone else in the company. This helps to ensure that you’re asking “who will we assign this task to” at every meeting. Essentially, this helps to make it clear who is doing what in order to drive projects forward.
Download our free templates for Progress Reports to improve productivity and cross team communication.
Status Reporting for Productivity
Status reports help managers keep an eye on everyone’s tasks, and help employees stay focused on important plans. Most importantly, status reporting ensures that everyone knows their role and who to get in touch with about certain projects.
By using Weekdone, you’ll see how simple and effective cross team communication can be. Toby Young, the CTO of Ebury says “Weekdone creates a circular effect of reporting and rather than responding to an email you can comment directly on Weekdone.” Talk about improving communication. Let’s set a limit those emails! In addition to commenting directly on posts – you can share documents, praise employees for a job well done, get feedback, and integrate the communication tools you already use. Learn more about integrations.
Here’s an example progress report sent to managers using Weekdone. This breaks down weekly happenings in the company.
At the end of the day, status reports help improve cross-team communication. Be the company hero, bring all teams together with Weekdone.