Looking Forward to Team 22: Collaboration is a Riddle I Struggle to Solve

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Problem-solving as a team is a problem I am desperately trying to solve.

And reading Matt's session description, I'm sure I'm not alone in this adventure. Collaboration games often turn into Hunger games with only one who survives to keep the faith in Confluence collab.

I passed the 1000-pages-created mark, and I'm still learning how to create better content flow for my team and fully engage them in the process. Each time I start a new Confluence project, I think:

• Do I see the bigger picture?

• Is that structure good for the entire team?

• How often my team is using Confluence, and are there any tools impacting their usability?

• How to reach out for feedback and be sure it's being noticed?

K15t are a bunch of bright people who are always searching for a better collaboration flow (thank you, guys!), and I am always excited to hear about their achievements (and steal a few unicorn stickers, but that's another topic).  💙

Except for sharing my excitement about Matt Reiner's upcoming talk, I'm asking you: what's your best practice when you want to engage your team in a Confluence activity?

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_

We're bringing a big bucket of Confluence best practices to Team '22.

We just did the internal beta test for the Collaboration Games '22 on Friday, and wow, they're going to be awesome!

Our best practice: We've found that a great way to engage the team in Confluence after we do an internal session like this is to share the page on Slack immediately following. This is great because the session content is fresh in their minds and they can easily click the link when they're ready to provide feedback. We also have a standard template we use for session feedback, so it makes the process really familiar.

I can't wait to share the Collaboration Games '22 and several other sessions with everyone at Team '22. I hope y'all can join!

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Thanks for sharing @Matt Reiner _K15t_ 

I've also noticed that your best shot to share a collaboration page is right after the discussion. It's almost like a cat and a box :)

If not engaged immediately, I know some people at least opened a tab with the Confluence page.

I'm so looking forward to your sessions! 

[Andy Gladstone]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ it's like searching for the holy grail - it's a conquest that is never ending. 

My best practice is to create collaborators by hosting Confluence Coffee Corners in our office when there is a critical mass of new employees that have joined and need to be trained into how Confluence works. Upon onboarding they are provided access to Confluence and they begin their journey learning about the company and their roles. Once they've had enough time to absorb Confluence, navigate around the platform and have some familiarity, I invite them into a four week cycle of once weekly Confluence Coffee Corners where we build pages together and I show them how easy it is not only to consume, but to contribute. 

I've also tried to kickstart some teams that have low contribution rates by creating Confluence Scavenger Hunts where points are awarded for how quickly someone consumes some content and summarizes it. 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I'm always curious about such an approach, and I'm happy to hear it's working for you. 

Confluence Coffee Corners sound like an activity I would love to join. But it's so dependent on your team's personality and overall engagement with achievements and gamification.

I'm always scared that my team will just roll their eyes and go use Google Docs. But I've never tried it, who knows! 

[Andy Gladstone]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ I had/have the same fears. Ultimately I pushed myself to do it by reinforcing for myself that I am giving these team members tools that will improve them personally and professionally and make them more valued members of our team. At the end of the day, you can lead a man to water, but they have to choose to drink!

[Jimmy Seddon]

Great discussion @Teodora V _Fun Inc_!  I'm lucky that the leadership at my company is 100% sold on/invested in Confluence (makes my job easy).  The recent addition of full page embeds in Jira has really sold a number of our developers on actually making edits to pages when they don't have to leave Jira.

So I guess my "tip" would be to meet people where they work.  If they live in email all day (though who would want to) show them the power of notifications, if they are in slack, get them to setup the slack bot.  Jira... well you get the point.

Once they dip their toe in the water, I'll bet more people are willing to come our and start working in Confluence natively (I know I was converted).

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Thanks for chiming in, @Jimmy Seddon

These are all excellent tips on how to handle teams with diverse preferences. Once people are more aware of any app's capabilities, they usually start exploring more and even switch to another tool or approach based on their gathered knowledge.