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Organizations can implement continuous improvement programs that will improve organizational work coordination and increase the efficiency of the entire enterprise.
In this article, we will show more effective ways of improving organizational coordination.
Many organizations find that their workplace has been overly complex and wasteful of time (Learn more about wasteful time in organization here). This can be due to the complexity of business processes and workflows, particularly with regard to task-related processes. As such, businesses are looking to implement better management software and work coordination.
Businesses need to find a way of moving data between different systems and procedures, creating a link that can greatly improve the workflow and reduce the costs of enterprise collaboration.
KanBo is an answer to these challenges. It is an efficient form of a task-based work coordination system that uses a board, notes, images, etc. to keep track and coordinate everything in the entire organization.
What is coordination in an Organization?
When multiple employees, teams, and departments work together in an organization, coordination is what binds them together in a harmonious manner. As tasks and activities are carried out at multiple levels, coordination ensures that the organization behaves like an organism that is in perfect synchronicity. This orderly effort not only binds the different departments together, but it also leads to the efficient achievement of shared goals of the organization (More about how to organize work in different departments is here).
How can organizations improve coordination?
1. Clearly Define Authority
In large organizations, authority can become a complex concept that is not easy to comprehend. For coordination efforts to pay off, individuals need to know the source of authority to feel responsible for their work.
2. Create Well-Defined Policies and Procedures
In enterprises, things can quickly turn chaotic without some semblance of order in the form of well-defined policies and procedures. This keeps things objective as people have a clear-cut guide on how to function in the organization.
3. Develop Effective Communication
Coordination is incomplete without effective communication that can be manifested in multiple forms including reports, committee meetings, groups, and more.
4. Value Organizational Interest
For coordination to be successful it is important for individuals to out the organization’s interest over their own and have an understanding of business goals and objectives.
5. Have Effective Leadership in Place
Effective leaders know the importance of coordination and seek to actively promote it at all levels through policies and initiatives.
What is effective coordination?
Effective coordination can save large organizations from the chaos that ensues when multiple people, teams, and departments come together to work towards a common goal. Here are some common characteristics of effective coordination that drive success in an organization:
- Increased sense of responsibility and clearly defined authority.
- Clear policies and procedures that avoid conflict and result in smooth-sailing operations.
- Employees valuing the organizational interest over personal interest and working in teams to achieve business goals.
- Effective communication procedures and multiple streams of communication that lay a sound base for coordination.
- A collective spirit to achieve shared goals.
- Highly efficient and productive team and departments that work without any hang-ups and conflict.
- An encouragement to take an active part in groups, committees, seminars, and other team-building efforts.
- Liaison officers who can help mediate between different departments.
Why coordination is important in an organization?
1. Cultivates Team Spirit
When people work together, there are bound to conflicts and rivalries that can come in the way of organizational success. Through good coordination, such conflicts can be largely avoided as it cultivates a collective team spirit. This encourages employees to work in tandem to achieve organizational goals.
2. Coordination gives proper direction
Large organizations have multiple departments with their own responsibilities. Coordination can give different departments a direction to work towards that ultimately adds up to the common goal of the company.
3. Motivates Employees
Better coordination means employees spend less time thinking about what to do and more time doing important work. This can lead to job satisfaction and a higher sense of accountability within employees.
4. Optimal Resource Utilization
Through coordination, an organization can combine its different resources and utilize them the right way while minimizing wastage.
5. Increases Efficiency
Better coordination leads to better efficiency as organizations can achieve their objectives quicker instead of wasting time over rivalries, delays, and other internal conflicts.
How do you maintain coordination in a cross-functional team?
Cross-functional teams can be a highly useful asset to your organization as they bring a host of diversity and new experiences to the table (Ready to use business solutions for Cross-functional teams is here). Here are some ways to maintain coordination in such teams:
1. Open Communication
Cross-functional teams need to be extra focused on practicing open communication between employees from different departments with differing views and opinions.
2. Effective Leadership
Much like any other team, cross-functional teams require an effective leader who is ultimately responsible for the success of the project. In a cross-functional team, this is even more important as there are needs to be an objective, unifying presence that can guide the team in the right direction and take responsibility for it.
3. Well-Defined Goals and Objectives
Members of a cross-functional team should be aware of the end-goal and objective from day one. Other important things to discuss beforehand include the resources available, the deadline, and the success criteria.
4. Proper Planning
All large undertakings require proper planning and cross-functional teams are no different. It is important to plan for the project beforehand and even set policies and procedures that ensure perfect coordination.
What is the importance of coordination in large organizations?
1. Promotes Unity of Action
As the organization grows in size, the number of employees multiples which results in different teams and departments, each holding different views, procedures, and objectives. Coordination is the key to integrating these personal and departmental goals into the overall organizational goals to promote the unity of action.
2. Reduces Conflict
Organizational conflict can eat away at a company from the inside and leave it weak and vulnerable. Proper coordination ensures that large organizations are tightly knit and from a close community free of conflict.
3. Optimizes for Maximum Efficiency
The larger the organization gets, the more difficult it becomes to make it more efficient. This is why many organizations are becoming lumbering giants that are subject to large delays. With perfect coordination, your organization can be optimized for the maximum efficiency needed to stay at the top.
How do you implement work coordination in the workplace using KanBo?
KanBo makes work coordination easier for large organizations by streamlining and automating it to fit the fast-moving agile workplace of today. Here are some work coordination features from KanBo that every team needs to succeed:
KanBo models real-world areas of work such as projects, processes, or departments in the form of KanBo Board. This helps to visualize complex workflows in an intuitive manner that helps your team manage coordination with increasing ease and efficiency. With the KanBo board you can:
- Simplify Navigation – Filter, zoom in and out, drag & drop, scroll and move to stay updated.
- Organize Workflows – Manage timelines, find bottlenecks and apply countermeasures for a smooth workflow
- Get Freedom of Action – KanBo board adapts to your team’s workflows to provide the bigger picture.
Coordination is made easier with card relations that draw links between multiple areas of work (cards) to reveal important connections. As work grows, KanBo helps you to keep track of it all and retains work visibility even when it gets complicated. With card relations you can:
- Get Control – Take full control of the dependencies in your task by exploring KanBo’s relations including a child, parent, next, previous, and relative.
- Get Updates on Progress – KanBo makes it easier to decipher the progress of each work item, no matter where it is in the organization all you have to do is visit the main card which contains the sub-cards, through that you will instantly be able to see the progress of smaller work items.
Take control of time with KanBo’s Timeline feature that helps you keep track of all dates, including deadlines, work-related dates, and more. Dates from KanBo cards are automatically mapped to the timeline for everyone to view. The intuitive design of the timeline makes it easier to view and derive insights from it. New dates can be set manually by dragging and dropping cards to the timeline.
You need a way to identify which stage your work is on to progress further. KanBo allows you to create personalized stages that your project can go through to meet your team’s requirements. Card statuses are an all in one progress representation feature that includes icons and colors to visualize work progress more intuitively.
KanBo’s notification system ensures that you never miss a deadline. This is done through notifications and reminders which are included in each card. These are fully customizable to meet user’s requirements and help you achieve perfect coordination.
Conclusion
As your organization grows, it becomes even more important for everyone to have a shared goal and the spirit to achieve it. Work coordination is the secret of ensuring perfect harmony and synergy within the organization that leads to long-lasting success.
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