I recently read an article that a group of Kansas farmers grouped their efforts in negotiating remarkable lease pricing and terms of their many acres of land to Oil giants for potential drilling.  Interestingly enough, a group of 100+ farmers were able to drive the lease price up of their land by pooling their resources together and standing strong resulting in incredible returns in their agreement with their tough negotiators.  It’s not atypical for big corporations to use their financial clout and size to bully the “common person” for their own financial gains.  However, history has repeated itself more than once demonstrating that the “David and Goliath” scenario will prevail when the underdog implements the right strategy and pools the best resources to ensure success.

Similarly, in the project management world a project’s success heavily depends on how resources of  teams orchestrate their united efforts in delivering positive results to their stakeholders and customers. As the project workforce continuously evolves where teams are commonly working in separate locations across time zones and regions, the unity of a project team (which is key to a project’s success) is constantly threatened.  To combat this reality, team unity heavily depends on web technologies and collaboration tools to provide an effective virtual community among project stakeholders.  Successful project teams understand that a mobile workforce need to quickly access information on multiple platforms and leverage all the available web tools (e.g. social media) to enhance the collaboration experience.  The idea is to develop an environment that delivers the value of local communication in global or geographically dispersed settings.

Although the project workforce may be becoming increasingly disconnected, the key to the future of team success will depend on the selection of the best collaboration tools that will empower an individual to effectively work together with his or her colleagues.  I believe Henry Ford stated it best, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

Tags: Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Lost Productivity, PM Fundamentals, Project Automation, Project Collaboration, Project Failure, Project Information, Project Teams, Social Media, Strategic Project Management, Successful Project Management, Team Unity, Teamwork