Three ways improve team collaboration

Whether you’re a nonprofit, government, or commercial enterprise, learn how to use processes, platforms, and people to improve the way your teams collaborate.

Processes: Processes include group processes (e.g., the nominal group technique) and task processes (e.g., a strategic planning process).

Platforms: Platforms have to do with collaboration technology platforms, such as collaborative workspaces, electronic brainstorming groupware, and other groupware technologies.

People: The people part is about using a meeting facilitator to help you get the right people in the room (i.e., have the right amount of cognitive diversity) and get them to engage in the right meeting behaviors (e.g., prevent people from dominating the conversation).

Kevin W. Holt, the founder of Co.Innovation Consulting, is a strategic planning consultant and meeting facilitator based in Phoenix, Arizona. He works with commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations to develop innovative strategies and solutions. His strategy consulting and meeting facilitation practice centers on the use of proven processes mapped to collaboration technologies (e.g., electronic brainstorming) and specialized software tools (e.g., the Blue Ocean strategy canvas). The technologies enable him to serve as both an offsite meeting facilitator and a virtual meeting facilitator for strategic planning workshops, innovation labs, brainstorming sessions, feedback sessions, and other types of meetings. Kevin is the author of Differentiation Strategy: Winning Customers by Being Different, published by Routledge in June 2022.