Collaboration: 3 Keys to Keeping Your Documents from Getting Lost in
Shuffle
Often, collaborating documents in a team or in a business can feel like a complex sports play gone wrong. The ball gets passed off to wrong person, dropped, or even lost. In addition, most document collaboration happens electronically. We are always told to save and resave these electronic documents, but it gets to point that we can’t even keep track of which draft we’re on. Not to mention our hard drive gets overloaded with so many similar document names that it blows whistle on us until there are no longer “too many men on field.” Huddle up! Let’s talk about 3 keys to making sure that every document we collaborate on is sure to score with our bosses, our clients, and each other.
Create Compatibility
Collaboration requires compatibility. In order to create compatibility, we need technology on our side. If you have ever tried to open a document from a member of your team that was in a format that was not compatible with applications on your computer, you are not alone.
Whether you are making a presentation, a budget, a report, a notice, a memo, or anything else that will be written in collaboration with another person or other people, all involved need to be able to read documents written in various applications. You will send it to a team member or a boss or a client via email, and you will want them to be able to open it, add their changes in collaboration, and send it back without any problems.
Too often in trying to collaborate, we have to keep emailing other members of our team, asking them to switch document from one format to another, prolonging can’t-be-prolonged projects. This way of working does not fit into a fast-paced business culture.
Leave No Player Behind
All too often, drafts come back without you knowing it, and inevitably, some changes are not included—you left a player behind. Applications that send notifications about changes save time and increase collaboration
