Dave Sibbet of Grove Consultants has delivered two excellent books for leaders and members of complex, distributed teams (how work gets done these days). This web site provides further details and there are also brief videos on each book.
These two books provide a wealth of information, easily accessible and usable. The focus on using visuals and graphics to improve team performance and the critical meetings that we must have for full collaboration and success. Visual Teams explores a wide range of tools, for example(from the Amazon review):
Same Time/Same Place—Face-to-Face Meetings
The tools explored in Visual Teams for this team mode are:
• Graphic recording on large paper
• Static and interactive whiteboards and multi-touch screens (and walls)
• Computer projection of idea mapping, flow charting, and other software
• Predesigned presentation murals and charts
• Wall and tabletop graphic templates
• Workbooks, worksheets, and handouts
• Sticky-note displays
• Decision-support software for electronic brainstorming, voting, and ranking
• Tablet computers for active graphic recording that is projected
Same Time/Different Place —Virtual Meetings
Many face-to-face meeting involve a virtual component with several people calling in. Its tools are:
• Teleconferences with target documents
• Web conferences with shared whiteboards and interactive presentations
• Web conferences with active recording on tablets
• Video conferences with telepresence and interactive whiteboards integrated
• Interactive whiteboards and telephones
• Live chat with or without video
• Browser-based decision-support software
Different Time—Same Place Meetings
This brings us back to a physical office or workspace. When teams are collocated they can communicate visually through the physical environment in ways that allow coworkers to see what is going on at different times. These tools include:
• Physical bulletin boards and project-management walls
• Posters
• Posted action plans and road maps
• Team rooms with displays
• Kiosks—physical and electronic
Anytime/Anyplace—Social Media and Cloud Computing
With cameras on smart phones and tablets, wifi and other Internet connects becoming universal, and data access from the cloud expanding exponentially, the “anytime/anyplace” possibility is becoming reality. Some of the tools that specifically make this possible are:
• Texting
• Video and photo sharing
• Teleconferencing on smart phones
• All the above plus drawings on smart tablets
• Coordinating through cloud computing services
• Mobile appliances of increasing variety
