State Governments Enhance Productivity and Efficiency With Collaboration Platforms

Workplace Modernization Streamlines Decision-Making

North Carolina CIO Teena Piccione says collaboration platforms empower state workers to deliver at the highest levels. “We want to share ideas, information and resources quickly and easily, with the goal of fostering seamless collaboration that leads to innovative solutions,” she says.

“Information technology, including the strategic use of collaboration platforms, plays an important role in connecting people and teams in our agency, throughout state government and across North Carolina,” Piccione adds.

Microsoft Teams supports both individual collaboration and project-oriented efforts. Individuals connect via chat, “and if you’re running a project, people usually have a Teams site for that project where they’re collaborating from a file perspective,” Nathaniel says.

“We have project managers who use it for initiating projects and managing all the items associated with their projects. They are doing real-time collaboration to provide that streamlined decision-making — organizing tasks, deadlines and so forth,” he says.

Collaboration platforms drive efficiency by bringing together people and resources.

“It used to be that things were disjointed. People had file management in different places. They were using email to do the transactional back-and-forth,” Nathaniel says. “Having tools that provide real-time collaboration, having one place for managing everything — that is a big benefit for our users.”

RELATED: Digital workspace transformation boosts productivity for SLGs.

Digital Collaboration Simplifies Moving From Task to Task

For the state of Connecticut, some 21,000 active users put Teams to work, both for internal collaboration and external events. “Employees host approximately 100,000 Teams meetings per month, ranging from one-on-one meetings to larger town halls with hundreds of people,” says Lisa Diggs, Connecticut director of workforce enablement.

Employees in diverse locations use Teams to streamline their cooperative efforts. “Many of our agencies have multiple locations across the state. In the past, people traveled to different places to meet in a single conference room,” Diggs says.

“Now, with the use of these collaboration tools, they’re joining in from offices in the Bridgeport area or the Hartford area or Stamford — wherever they are. They’re meeting virtually,” she says.

Collaboration platforms help state employees save time. “In the past, you would have a little gap in between meetings so you had time to walk between floors or buildings,” Diggs says. “Now, we have back-to-back meetings, with collaborative tools allowing us to quickly transition.”

That’s especially important when agencies are trying to get work done across multiple locations. “You save that time driving back and forth between different buildings. You’re jumping right on a meeting and you’re getting things done a lot faster and a lot more efficiently,” she says.

Collaboration Tools Enhance Productivity

In Virginia, a range of tools support effective collaboration. “All the executive branch agencies and 55,000-plus state employees have Teams licenses,” says Brahma Alaparthi, chief of enterprise and cloud solutions for the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. “They use it to do the general day-to-day communication, chat messaging and virtual team meetings, as well as meetings with external stakeholders.”

“We also have document collaboration using different platforms and tools such as SharePoint and Box, a secure enterprise service for sharing sensitive content between internal stakeholders and external stakeholders, vendors and constituents,” he says.

DIVE DEEPER: Box facilitates secure collaboration across departments.

Alaparthi notes that these platforms have built-in capabilities that expand their impact beyond immediate connectivity.

“I just came out of a meeting where everybody who was in the meeting was onsite, and we still started a Team meeting just to capture it, to record the meeting notes,” he says.

“Even if we don’t have any remote participants, it’s valuable just to be able to record the meeting,” he said. “I cannot really imagine any agency not using these tools.”

SUBSCRIBE: Sign up for the StateTech newsletter for weekly updates.

Adopting Best Practices Boosts the Value of Collaboration Tools

A few best practices can help IT teams drive effective use of collaboration platforms.

First, it’s important to acknowledge that not all meetings are the same. “Understanding the type of meeting that you’re having allows you to set up the meeting properly,” Nathaniel says.

“Let’s say I’m just having a one-on-one meeting with you. I can open my chat and start a call,” he says. “But if I’m having a group meeting, and it’s a confidential meeting, what are the parameters that we need to set? Maybe we need to disable chat, we need to disable recording. We want to make sure that recording cannot be shared externally.”

Diggs notes that IT can take other steps to ensure users get maximum benefit from the tools. “A few months ago, we had a training session about using a whiteboard on Teams. That’s one thing you might miss from a conference room, just standing up at the whiteboard sharing ideas,” she says.

“Teams offers that, and it’s a feature that wasn’t used as much because people just weren’t aware of it,” she says. “As Microsoft introduces new features, we will continue to hold sessions for employees to take advantage of our collaboration tools.”

KEEP READING: Public sector agencies can get more out of Microsoft Teams.

The tools only work if people put them to use. “Successful adoption is essential,” Alaparthi says. To that end, IT should “invest in resources, such as training sessions, user guides and support materials.”

State IT leaders can “establish a community of practice to share knowledge, highlight success stories and drive continuous improvement,” he says. 

They can also leverage their vendor relationships to support this effort. “Partner with vendors to tap their expertise and learn industry best practices that can be adapted to your environment,” he adds.