Real-time Collaboration Solutions for the Global Workforce

By Courtney Macavinta

It's becoming a familiar scene in many enterprises: A team works closely together every day, jumping from one form of communication to another -- from instant messaging to video conferencing to meeting over the phone. And they collaborate and accomplish goals side by side -- but without ever actually meeting face-to-face.

In the age of the global enterprise, CIOs are increasingly recognizing the need for real-time collaboration among team members who may be located in different cities -- or even continents. With the help of collaboration tools that go beyond phones and email, teams can easily and quickly brainstorm and work together on projects despite their differing locations. And real-time collaboration tools not only connect teams more effectively, they can provide considerable cost savings to an organization.

"The value of collaborating is about community -- you have to be where people are to make it work," says Jon Arnold, an analyst and principal of J Arnold & Associates. "As long as you have broadband, you're connected. It makes people more productive simply because these are the tools the Net generation uses. It's intuitive to them."

Primarily driving the need is the growing trend of distributed organizations, an increase in remote workers and the rise in business-to-business teams, according to a September 2008 report by Forrester Research's Ted Schadler, Distributed Teams Need Real-Time Collaboration Tools. Case in point: 48% of 450 North American and European enterprises surveyed by Forrester said they planned to upgrade or implement collaboration software this year.

Here's what experts say CIOs need to know about real-time collaboration tools and best practices for implementation:

Step No. 1: Know the real-time communication tool landscape
When it comes to real-time collaboration tools, the theme is "synchronous." Tools need to allow teams to truly communicate in real time. Whereas with email or shared calendars you have to wait for a response or update, with real-time tools, the exchange is immediate. Among the real-time tools becoming mainstays in many organizations are:

• Presence Put simply, "presence" features within tools, such as IM, allow employees to indicate if they are available to collaborate or meet and can post their physical location, such as "in Building 8 at my desk until noon." Gartner senior research analyst David Smith says presence tools are essential. "That ability to see if your colleagues are online or not becomes invaluable. You get answers that you need," he says.

• Instant messaging IM has grown beyond chat. Now workers can send each other files, switch into video chatting or create a live conference with multiple co-workers on the spot.

• Mobile texting With new smartphones, such as the iPhone, that act like small computers, workers can now stay seamlessly connected to their team via email, texting, document sharing and calls.

• Document, screen sharing, application sharing and virtual whiteboarding These tools allow teams to actually work on projects at the same time, exchanging files, edits, ideas and being able to see each other's desktops.

• Audio conferencing Though commonplace already, conference calls (also known as audio bridges) by landline, mobile phone or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are still a key component of real-time collaboration frameworks.

• Telepresence or Web conferencing Using everything from high-resolution to spatial audio that doesn't have a delay, emerging telepresence tools create the illusion that teams are in the same room (one-to-many meetings), interacting even when they are miles apart. Webcams that enable one-to-one video conferencing also fall into this category. "It's so easy to see how you can reduce travel time with tools such as Web conferencing," Smith says. "You can actually measure cost reduction."

Step No. 2: Know how tools solve common problems
All teams don't need all real-time communication tools. The key for CIOs is offering and supporting the right mix that increases productivity and, ideally, lowers costs.

"Look at key processes that can be improved by real-time collaboration," Smith says. "Maybe it's customer service -- like you can speed up the time it takes to answer clients. Ask: What can be improved by real-time collaboration? Match the problem with how these tools can solve the problems."

Step No. 3: Know who is driving virtual collaboration
To understand how real-time collaboration tools are already being used throughout the enterprise, Forrester recommends that IT managers take stock of so-called "alpha collaborators." These are the employees who are already using tools such as IM, social networks or Web conferencing to get their jobs done.

"They are your greatest resource for identifying new tools, driving adoption and testing new scenarios," Forrester reports.

Then, based on that research, IT managers can also create team scenarios that identify which tools are needed to achieve business goals. For example, CIOs can work with business partners within their enterprise to determine what certain teams require most -- whether it is communication, presence or document-sharing real-time tools.

Though in the past IT may have considered communication tools only an expense item, Arnold says that's now shifting. And for employees, the expectations for real-time collaboration tools will only continue to expand.

"The innovations and tools people use are coming out of the consumer experience, not the business experience," Arnold says. "So the learning curve is short and requires less training. Web-based tools are changing so much about how we communicate. People are living with these tools in their personal life, and they are bringing those expectations to the workplace."

Courtney Macavinta is a Silicon Valley-based business and technology writer. Her articles have appeared in CNET News online, Inc. online, Business 2.0, Red Herring, Wired News and The Washington Post. She is also the managing editor of The Online Family.