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Software Tool Evaluation Factor 3: Collaboration

Collaboration

Ten years ago, Collaboration would be included in Usability), as there would be not much to say about. But I have to saytoday: Facebook has changed the world. The business version is today Slack used in many companies as a collaboration tool. Confluence including HipChat from Atlassian is also all about collaboration and in software development, collaboration seems to be as important as development itself. Platforms like GitLab, GitHub, TeamHub and BitBucket are used to store code and collaborate, review tools like Gerrit are also all about collaboration. The Google Suite allows to collaborate on Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations. Office products do the same.

So what do you need in your software which you´re evaluating in order be prepared for the next ten years? I can´t tell you that, but I can tell some criteria in today´s world of collaboration:

You should consider proving a tool at least for

  • Sharing
  • Communication
  • Team and Social Collaboration

How many emails do you exchange inside your team daily and what about briefing the team about goals? Do you use email for informing users about new data in the tool? Do you have remote users?

When the answers are "too much", "takes too long", "yes", then you should definitely include this collaboration part in your evaluation.

This is not theoretical, practical results show users improving on productivity, process and outcome when using collaboration tools. So why not include collaboration directly in your new tool?

Sharing

  • How can information be shared inside the tool to inform other users?
  • Outside the tool: E-Mail is old, hooks to tools like Slack would be more valuable

What kind information can users share?

  • New, changed, deleted entries
  • Can the sharing be automated?
  • Ideas to existing artifacts?

Communication

  • How is communication inside the tool possible?
  • Is the communication easy to handle and maintain?
  • When the communication is outside the tool, can you link to information inside the tool?
  • When communication is through email, can the tool import replies?
  • Does the tool allow at least comments?

Team and Social Collaboration

  • Collaboration is all about communication, so both use similar functionalities, but collaboration is more about "working together live" on the same object
  • Can you work in the tool together on one topic?
  • Any chatting options in the tool?
  • Does the tool have a real-time communication system?
  • Does the tool allow a kind of audio/video conferencing?
  • Can you share the screen or at least sync several screens to work on the same topic?
  • Can this communication be recorded?
  • Does the tool support markups?
  • Are there any Kanban style boards available in the tool?
  • Can you include any Avatars / Pictures for the users?
  • Is there any support for emojis in the tool?

One very important topic shouldn´t be missed at the end: Sharing, Communication and Collaboration must be secure for all authorized users.