Working together as a team is crucial to success in the workplace, and good teamwork doesn't happen by accident. Coordinating the efforts of many people takes planning and foresight. This is as true for collaborating on documents as it is for any other aspect of teamwork.

Collaborating on documents

Document collaboration is a fact of life in today's workplace. For example, to create a new employee manual, a human resources manager might need input from the legal department, a vice president, and department managers. The manager might also need to have an administrative assistant send the finished product through the revision process.

In another example, a lawyer gathering information for a bankruptcy estate filing might need information from government agencies, creditors, and the client. The documents must be reviewed by the appropriate people, and then the filing must be prepared, documented, and filed.

The pitfalls

If you work with other people on documents, you probably see what can go wrong in the process. For example:

• Multiple versions of a document floating around, creating redundancy and extra work.
• Confusion about task ownership. For example, one team member might waste time researching an issue that another has already covered.
• Overlooked comments and input when a document is passed around.
• Wasted time compiling comments from multiple copies of a document.

Some collaboration options

To solve these problems and bring efficiency to your projects, you have several collaboration methods to consider:

• Hard copy (paper documents)   In spite of hopes about a "paperless workplace," most of us rely on paper documents at some point. It's straightforward enough — you give the document to a team member who marks it up or attaches comments and passes it on. No software training is required, and if you stick to one copy or file folder, it should be easy to keep everyone's comments together.

  On the other hand, paper documents can get misplaced. They're not convenient if only some of the team members work in the same office and if team members can't see comments as the comments are added.

• E-mail messages or attachments   When you need quick feedback, an e-mail message is one way to go. E-mail gets most people's attention, and they can reply just to you or to the entire group. If you want input on a longer or more formal document, you can send a Microsoft Office Word 2003 document as an attachment. If you use the tracking and reviewing features in Word, you can see who made which changes and when they were made.
• The Meeting Workspace feature in Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003   Meeting Workspace provides a convenient, centralized place where your team can work together on a project. It's also a great place to store everything that pertains to a project. You can post meeting agendas and minutes, record decisions, track tasks, and more. You always have the latest version, and you don't have to send large files through e-mail.

Improving the process

How can you improve the quality and efficiency of your team's document collaboration method? Here are some lessons that people have learned — sometimes the hard way.

Periodically evaluate your collaboration process

It pays to step back and evaluate your current collaboration process. What's going right? What needs improvement?

For example, on your last project:

• Did team members participate in the process?
• Were conflicts or differences of opinion resolved satisfactorily?
• Did one person end up doing all the work?

You might want to ask your co-workers what types of problems the group had with document collaboration. Analyzing a problem that seems like a fluke, such as someone revising a document from the wrong folder, can help you find process steps that can be improved to prevent the same problem next time. Teamwork doesn't get better because people grit their teeth and try harder — teamwork improves when better processes are put into place.

Designate a project leader

Every project or document needs an owner. Otherwise, the document might not accomplish its objective. For example, someone posts a spreadsheet on an intranet site and everyone is instructed to keep it up to date. Two months later, only a few people are entering information, and a month after that, even they aren't sure whether they're supposed to. Because the document has no owner, they don't even know who to ask.

Make it clear who owns each document or project. A hard copy (paper document) or a Word file can have a heading that identifies its owner. If you use the Meeting Workspace feature in Outlook 2003, you can identify the owner in the document library. (A document library is a folder where a collection of files is shared and the files often use the same template. Each file in a library is associated with user-defined information that is displayed in the content listing for that library.)

Let people know what's expected of them — and when

The first thing that the leader needs to do is get commitment from the group. If you send an assignment — even with a specified deadline — don't assume it's become anyone's priority unless they've confirmed it. Team members might be facing a killer deadline that puts your document low on the priority list. When you establish and confirm expectations and a deadline, you're much more likely to get timely input.

Hard copy or an attached Word file can have a heading with roles, expectations, and deadlines. A Meeting Workspace keeps all this information in one place and always accessible to everyone on the team.

Stay on top of version control

If you ever spent hours revising the wrong document, you know the frustration — and waste — that poor version control can lead to. And there are a lot of opportunities for ending up with the wrong file. Before you pass a file around, set some ground rules.

For example, if you're sharing a document through e-mail, set rules for how to use the To line and the Cc line, and make sure everyone on the team understands when to use Reply or Reply to All.

If you're passing around a Word document, protect the document from unauthorized changes and from having the Track Changes feature turned off. You can also require everyone who reviews or changes a document to add their name, the date, and a version number to a header or footer in the document.

Version control is one of the strongest arguments for storing documents online. When you store a document in a Meeting Workspace, everyone on the team can always see the latest version. Any team member can check it out, make changes, and check it back in. You can see who has it checked out and who's made changes, plus you can look at the document history and see old versions at any time.

Learn to resolve conflict

As they say, if two or more people always agree, somebody's fibbing. Entire books have been written about reaching consensus, but a few basic rules can help.

Management must set the standard for how conflicts are handled. Sometimes one person can be the tie-breaker; in other cases, the group can vote. In all cases, subject matter experts such as editors and legal counsel need to have the last word in their areas.

• Encourage communication and participation   Heavy-handed methods can help you reach a so-called consensus quickly, but they defeat the purpose of a team — using the diverse skill sets and backgrounds of team members. Make sure that your conflict resolution methods encourage communication and participation, not artificial consensus.
• Acknowledge opinions and share reasoning   For example, if you send hard copy around for comments, someone — usually the owner of the document or project — must compile the results. Depending on the project, this person might need to respond to each concern and comment, or they might be able to make the call without further input. Even when the document owner has the authority to make the final decisions, however, it's important to understand everyone's concerns and document how decisions were made.
• Keep a record of the project progress   If you use e-mail to do your collaboration, you can send messages (with or without attached documents) back and forth until all issues are resolved. You can save the e-mail string as a record of the decisions that were made along the way. Comments and changes within the document also leave a good record of everyone's input. Be sure to save a copy with the comments and changes as a record, and then remove all tracked changes and comments before you publish the document.

  Meeting Workspace gives you a place to keep a collection of documents, plus other information such as background research, prior versions of documents, team member names and contact information, and notices about upcoming meetings.

Keep your process flexible

Not everything can be resolved effectively within a document — whether it be in hard copy, in an e-mail message, or posted online. Sometimes, you have to pick up the phone, walk down the hall, or schedule a meeting.

Reaping the rewards

By combining the strengths of individuals, your team working together can accomplish more than any of you could on your own. By combining personal and organizational skills with the right technology, you can effectively collaborate on documents and reap the rewards of successful teamwork.