Social task management and work collaboration software and all its permutations is here to stay. It provides businesses a way to connect and collaborate with each other and customers. I sat down with Jeff Ellerbee, Troux Solutions Marketing Manager at Planview to discuss the topic… here are a few reasons why enterprise architects should consider leveraging social and work collaboration tools based on that conversation.
1) Stay connected, communicate, and shift perception
According to Jeff Ellerbee, enterprise architects aren’t always known by others outside of their technology domain. And too often, the business is not exactly sure what enterprise architects even do. In some cases, enterprise architecture teams are perceived as the group that slows projects down, or worse, stops progress. That needs to change!
Enterprise architects are more than just the smart guys in the corner. They have a wealth of knowledge and can provide real value to the organization’s strategy and bottom line. That’s where social and social task and work collaboration solutions come in…
Work collaboration solutions, like Projectplace, help enterprise architects easily connect with stakeholders across the enterprise. Social media-style collaboration features such as conversation forums can be used to start a dialog about an idea, project, or task so information and decisions can be shared and understood by all involved.
For example, imagine if the enterprise architects could easily share the purpose of governance steps on a project-by-project basis? The enterprise architect could explain rationale, stakeholders could ask questions and provide feedback until the business context is understood – improving the decision-making process and in tandem show the value in working with the enterprise architecture team.
2) Bring teams together to get more work done
According to Jeff, social task and work collaboration tools help enterprise architects get work done. We all know the story… teams have limited resources which are often shared and spread across departments and/or geographies (it’s no different for enterprise architecture teams).
Fortunately, most social task and work collaboration technologies have capabilities such as virtual workspaces that allow teams to execute enterprise architecture projects and engage with stakeholders from anywhere in the company, both internal and external. In addition, some solutions incorporate Kanban board functionality to help track who is doing what and the progress of work.
These tools are just getting off the ground in the enterprise architecture space, but they should be considered for adoption as they increase communication and enable enterprise architects and the business to get more work done together.
I’d like to hear from you. Are you using social task and work collaboration tools within your team? Share by leaving a comment below.
