This document provides tips for improving collaboration without increasing meetings. It discusses how digital tools can help create a continuous flow of work and improve knowledge sharing within teams. Specific tips include setting collaboration norms, selecting appropriate tools, tagging and distributing content to make it easily findable, and taking time to ensure everyone is comfortable with the tools. Meetings can be improved by setting clear agendas, publishing materials in advance, and using digital tools for status updates and comments. Two case studies show how an enterprise social network helped a global team leverage expertise and how shifting an RFP process online improved coordination, transparency, and quality. The document emphasizes digitizing work, developing digital skills, and mentoring colleagues.

1. Merced Group
Catherine Shinners
Merced Group
Work Positive Series
August 2023
Power Up!
Better collaboration
without more
meetings
Tips on digital tools, use,
and team practice

2. Our conversation today
§ Flow – how collaboration should feel
§ App stacks, meeting monster – how it really feels
§ Chronic malfunctions
§ Tips for teams
§ Reshape meetings
§ Two case studies
Merced Group

3. 3
Digital Teams
A continuous flow
Network-
based group
cohesion &
connection
More agility &
knowledge
flows
Content
awareness &
accessibility
Transparent
conversational
flow of work
ME
ME
WE
WE
Transparent creation and co-
creation of content in the flow
of work leads to new
conversations, feedback loops
Use of triggers in streams or
channels - alerts, filters, or tags
improves awareness &
accessibility of content
changes, work in progress
Sharing updates , expanding connections using social
profiles, brings richer context and stronger cohesion
Visibility of work
expands knowledge
collections, invites
diversity of more
inputs

4. §Brings web benefits within the enterprise
SLATES*, mobile, varied media (video, voice, text), rich experience, location, mediates temporal, spatial barriers
§Pull not just push
Subscribing, alerts, tagging, social graph
§Enhanced contextuality
Immediacy, persistence of conversation - Resources, assets are in the flow. Authentic leadership
voices emerge. Socializing knowledge – learning as we go
§Behavior, capabilities, ethos
Transparency, networks of relationships, reciprocity (value in sharing) , personal knowledge curation
§Empowered association
Communities of practice, knowledge networks, internal crowdsourcing
DNA of Flow
Core Value Elements of the Digital Workplace
Merced Group *Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signals

5. Employee Comms
Platforms
Productivity
Email
Meeting
Solutions
Content
Collaboration
Workstream
Collaboration
Enterprise Social
Networks
Y-A-T Factor
Yet Another Tool Challenges
q New tools, more tools, cloud tools
q IT project rollout focus, low or missing
business integration
q Poor or missing guidance, governance
q Reliance on earlier tools – email,
individual productivity tools – missing
digital opportunity
Merced Group
Merced Group

6. 1,050
Merced Group
Default meeting practice melts time, fatigues workforce, eats resources

7. Adapting to new workplace protocols
Hybrid, remote, in-office
Merced Group

8. Meeting
malfunction
§ Complex workflows driven in email
§ Cross-functional teams
§ Fractured communication threads
§ Project artifacts not in flow
§ Versioning confusion-quality control
§ Continuous improvement hampered by
buried knowledge
§ Pushed not pulled (dlist distraction)
Email driven workflows
and communications
§ Misuse of high value F2F meeting
time (status updates, content
review)
§ Overscheduling
§ Distracted multitasking during
meeting
§ Poor meetings norms
Merced Group

9. Digital working tips
For teams
q Norm setting - At project start take set up
collaboration and tools and meeting norms.
q Tool selection - What tools should we use to
communicate and capture project activities?
q Content connectivity - How should we tag &
distribute content so it is consistently find-
able & people receive timely alerts for content
updates?
q Co-learning and tuning - Take time at
beginning of project work and an intervals to
make sure everyone is comfortable with tools
and using effectively
For yourself
q Content connectivity Your work product
includes connecting it, making it find-able on
a network – tagging, link-ability, connecting
to social profiles
q Info Flow - Proactively manage flows of
information – bring elements like activity
streams, tagged content into your realm of
awareness (alerts), manage alert flow to
support concentration at other times
q Co-learning - Find a “tools buddy” – build
your own capability
Merced Group

10. Reshape meetings
For teams
q Norm setting – Do we need to meet
regularly? Can conversational tools and
web-based status updates carry that work?
Does everyone need to be in every
meeting? Set times to allow for people to
transition into and out of meeting space.
q Razor sharp expectations - Clear agendas
published ahead of time, pre-meeting
expectations (review material) post
comments online
q Don’t call, but convene meetings – bring
attention & focus – threshold transition
especially for video meetings
For yourself
q Request norms - ask for meeting
artifacts for review ahead of
meetings and process for advance
status updates, shorter meeting
times
q Info Flow – Use digital tools to
post queries, requests for
clarification, comments in online
shared tools
q Boundaries – Establish/block
focused work time on calendar
Merced Group

11. GLOBAL DEAL ASSESSMENT
FORTUNE 500 TECH COMPANY
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Building a knowledge base around insight,
experience and understanding of the market
dynamics and successful deal structures.
11
Merced Group

12. SITUATION & CHALLENGE
Situation
❏ A global deal assessment group’s job is to ensure the technical quality of
service contracts for client organizations.
❏ Small group with team members in varied geographies. Each member
possesses unique domain knowledge about their regional market,
competitive intelligence and deal structures.
Challenge
❏ How to leverage group insight, experience, understanding of market
dynamics, and successful deal structures for group learning and onboarding
new team members
12
Merced Group

13. WHAT THE TEAM DID
❏ A team space in an enterprise social network environment - - members discussed
and reviewed challenges and opportunities in each market, and leveraged that
insight into regional deals.
❏ The use of social profiles - - A geographically dispersed team kept track of
growing experience and expertise of each other.
❏ A Q&A section - - important questions were answered transparently for the benefit
of the group while experts expanded on topics.
❏ A shared workspace - - competitive information and market intelligence artifacts
were placed in a common shared workspace.
❏ Alerts and notifications - - group tracked specific areas of content development
or change.
❏ Consistent tagging - - increase in searchability, identification of critical content,
observable discussion
13
Merced Group

14. RESULTS
❏ More access to tacit know-how,
enabled group to leverage all
insights, experiences
❏ Gained greater ‘in-context’
understanding of successful deal-
structuring
❏ New team members onboarded
more quickly
❏ More questions answered, deal
project information was
transparently available
14
Merced Group

15. RFP PROCESS
FORTUNE 500 TECH COMPANY
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Moving a complex RFP process out of
fragmented, narrow and above-the-flow
practices into open, in-the-flow processes.
15
Merced Group

16. An RFP response is a complex, cross-functional work process that involves:
❏ coordinating project manager
❏ technical domain specialists
❏ product specialists
The process required a quick response to multiple requests for proposals from
clients but their response was slowed by:
❏ A workflow driven by email
❏ Loss of context because of poor coordination
❏ Versioning confusion resulting in poor quality control
❏ Time wasted in status update meetings
❏ Tacit know how buried in emails (problem solving, repurposed knowledge)
16
SITUATION & CHALLENGE
❏ sales staff
❏ senior management
❏ finance staff
❏ legal staff
Merced Group

17. WHAT THE TEAM LEARNED
❏ Shorter time to completion of RFPs
❏ Higher overall quality and accuracy
❏ Better continuous improvement through broader reuse of tacit know-how
❏ Increased visibility of team members leading to more cohesive response
❏ Collectively up-to-date through alerts, notifications
❏ Easier to track asset versions and contributions to the project
❏ Better visibility to conversations, around issues and problem-solving
17
Merced Group
Shifted process to an online collaboration platform with real-time
messaging and transparent view of process deliverables

18. §Develop digital literacy towards
mastery
§Broaden learning networks and
contexts
§Adopt digital team and meeting
norms
§Digitize your work products
§Mentor digital skills building up to
leadership and out to colleagues
Hybrid, in-office, remote. It’s all working
Merced Group

19. Catherine Shinners
In our networked world
we’re more connected to
our organizations, society,
environment - and each
other.
Catherine brings her
background as a change
agent, communicator and
technologist to help people
& organizations build new
agilities and adaptations to
the way they network,
learn, lead and create
value.
Merced Group
Merced Group
SIKM Leaders - Global KM network
San Francisco Bay Area KM
Bay Area Organizational Development Network
NorCal Association of Change Management
Professionals (ACMP)
Merced Group is a digital workplace, communications and change
management consultancy helping companies drive productivity
and create employee experience and engagement through digital
workplace design and practice, innovative communications
programs and scalable change management.
Networks
Associate - Digital
Workplace Group