You spend 3 hours a day sending emails to keep your projects on track and teams up-to-date. You think, “This cannot be right, there must be a better way” and spend 15 minutes on a search engine looking for “group collaboration tools”.

Your chosen product is free to try, doesn’t need any hardware or software, so has to be worth a shot. You sign up, try it with some of your team and then no-one uses it. We have all been there – long live the inbox.

However, there is a smarter way. If you are actively looking to improve the way your team or company communicate, consider the points below before you hit that “sign up now” button on your chosen collaboration tool:

1) What is the problem you are looking to solve?

Email overload is often not the problem you are trying to fix. Typically, it will be a specific business issue such as “My team is now more geographically spread out and we are having trouble keeping remote workers on the same page”. Spend a few minutes making sure you have the problem clearly defined.

2) Keep the scope of the problem small

Don’t try and change the world overnight. If teams in your company cannot communicate effectively, decide to initially solve this problem for just one group. You will have a simpler process to manage and can use your early wins to expand the solution to other teams from a position of strength.

3) Is this initiative sponsored by someone with influence?

Asking your team to “please use this product rather than e-mail for a bit” will result in people reverting back to business-as-usual after some initial interest. Addressing this inertia involves you or your sponsor having the ability to say “No-one should use email for items relating to this project”. This is often the hardest part to get right but arguably the most important part of the process. If your chosen solution is working you shouldn’t have to do this for very long.

4) Pilot something before you commit to a product

You will find that positioning this first step as a pilot enables management to give the project proper focus for a short period of time rather than view it as a big decision. This will get you up and running and most good products should offer a free version to get you going.

5) Run the pilot, seek feedback and refine

You will know when your pilot is being successful as your chosen product should take on a life of its own. People will naturally begin to use it every day and will encourage others to do the same.
If this doesn’t happen, find out why; did the product you choose not offer the benefits it claimed, was the pilot sponsored correctly (they didn’t use e-mail did they?) or did the pilot focus on the wrong business problem? Understand the reasons and revisit points 1-3 to refine your approach.


Changing the way people work is a journey rather than destination but getting it right can be very rewarding for you and your company. Good luck!

About the Author:
Brett Davis is Chief Executive Officer of Sazneo, a real-time business-to-business communication service that enables teams to communicate more effectively.