As teams continue to work apart for months and possibly years, how can we continue collaborating virtually without risking burnout?
(A) THE CENTRAL QUESTION FOR TEAMS – one important function: reducing excessive team collaboration by focusing on key areas of work and thus, they stop themselves from becoming overloaded and conserve their bandwidth.
Additional Benefits – 1. Fewer virtual team meetings freed up time for individuals to do other work.
2. Meetings were more engaging since they focused only on essential work that required everyone’s active engagement.
3. Team members had more mental energy since fewer meetings lessened virtual meeting fatigue.
(B) PUTTING THE QUESTION INTO ACTION – How can teams decide what is worth their collaborative energy and what is not?
1. Create clarity of team expectations.
2. Specify the work
3. Ask and answer the central question.
(C) PLOT YOUR STRATEGY WITH A VISUAL EXERCISE –
Innermost circle – Involving projects requiring the whole team’s attention
Center circle – Involving projects requiring subsets of the entire team
Outermost circle – Projects best addressed by individual employees.
Important – Collaborating less where it matters most will be a boon to any team, regardless of where they are working.
