Key considerations for communication technology adoption 

In April, PowerToFly hosted their 2022 Diversity Reboot on the topic of Future of Work – The Remote and Hybrid Office. I was honored to be invited to discuss best practices for communication technology usage. 

As a part of the discussion, key considerations when considering and evaluating collaboration technologies for team communication were discussed. Some key considerations mentioned were:

Task support/purpose: the specific technology a team needs is incredibly dependent on the task at hand. For example, email is not going to work for complicated decisions and discussions. Therefore, keeping the team’s purpose in mind as the most important priority is critical.

Access/support: making sure that team members have access to the technology and can get help/support if they need it, is also critical. If team members have trouble getting into a tool, then they are already starting at a disadvantage. 

Ease of use: team members really do not need to spend time trying to figure out how to use a technology (this is sometimes called futz time). So minimizing this learning time and finding tools that are easy to use or can be explained easily is important.

Accessibility: teams need collaboration technologies that accommodate all of their needs (e.g., visual, audio, etc.)? Zoom is one example that has been improving with the added transcription feature, ease of recording both the video and the audio, addition of pronouns, etc. Teams also have to think about other accessibility considerations such as color support (for those who are color blind) and screen readers, etc. 

The conversation also considered establishing specific collaboration technology policies as well as lesser-known communications products that might be of interest as teams are exploring new collaboration technologies. Watch the full conversation online.