Everything You Should Know About Asynchronous Collaboration

Is there anything worse than sitting through an endless meeting that could have been an email? For most employees, one of the most dreaded parts of their job is getting stuck in endless unproductive meetings.

That’s not to say that traditional in-person meetings can’t be valuable and are needed from time to time, because they are. However, research shows that employees spend a whopping 31 hours in unproductive meetings each month. The biggest problem with that statistic isn’t even the nuisance of unproductive meetings, but it’s the poorly spent company dollars. When employees take part in unnecessary meetings, businesses are literally throwing away money. 

With the global COVID lockdown pushing everything online, remote work is now the norm, rather than an exception, which is leading to many employees, working in numerous time zones, going about their workday in unsynchronized ways. Enter asynchronous collaboration. 

Asynchronous collaboration allows employees to join the conversation whenever is convenient for them, using a remote workspace. In order to have successful asynchronous collaboration, four criteria must take place: a meeting/collaboration goal, an agenda, notes, and participants. 

In other words, your asynchronous collaboration should have the same requirements as a traditional meeting, but it can take place remotely and participants can join or continue the conversation at a time that is most convenient for them. 

Benefits of Asynchronous Collaboration

• Save time before and after every meeting
  If you are working remotely, and asynchronously, there is no need to set up or tear down a physical workspace.

• Generate more ideas than in a conventional collaboration or meeting
  Your team can contribute more ideas, whenever inspiration strikes, as there are no hard time limits on when content can be added to your collaboration space.

• Keep everything in one place
  You will inevitably be using a digital tool for your asynchronous collaboration, which means that instead of having to erase a whiteboard, or keep ideas in a file on your computer, they will be stored in one shared digital space that everyone on your team can access.

• Everyone gets a chance to contribute in their own voice
  Collaborating asynchronously allows everyone a chance to contribute their thoughts and ideas — especially those members of your team who don’t often get a chance to speak up in a more traditional meeting space.

Challenges of Asynchronous Collaboration

As with any approach to team collaboration, there are some challenges that must be addressed when it comes to asynchronous collaboration in order to get the most fluid transition possible. 

For many businesses, remote work is here to stay, but expecting your employees to hop on video calls multiple times in a day is not realistic. If you can overcome the challenges of asynchronous collaboration, you’ll be rewarded with employees that are happier in their roles and are working better together.  

Some issues that may arise with asynchronous collaboration include:

A lack of emotional context 

To give you a non-work-related example, think about how easy it is to lose context and misunderstand text messages. Emotions, feelings, and context communicated through body language and facial expressions, are lost through asynchronous meetings. 

This can often result in team members guessing how their teammates and managers may be feeling about a certain situation. This can be a tricky road to navigate. 

Harvard Business Review wrote an article about losing emotional context, and how it can affect a team, “What’s missing from our texts, emails, conference calls, and other digital communications? Body language. Even when we’re co-located, the tone of a text or the formality of an email is left wide open to interpretation... these misinterpretations create an anxiety that can become costly, affecting morale, engagement, productivity, and innovation.”

In order to ensure a more communicative and comfortable work environment, emotional insight has to be communicated in other ways. 

It is challenging to build relationships 

It can be harder to build relationships when there’s less face time among a team. Even in meetings that were otherwise unproductive, time is typically allotted for the team to debrief, discuss, and brainstorm before or after a meeting. When it comes to asynchronous meetings and collaboration, this factor is taken away. 

Building relationships between employees and creating a collaborative workplace culture may be more difficult with remote work and this new form of meeting. It’s imperative that your team feels like a team, so extra steps must be taken to ensure that team members don’t feel disconnected. 

How to remove roadblocks to effective Asynchronous Collaboration

In order to overcome the challenges presented by asynchronous collaboration, there are a few extra steps that need to be taken to accommodate the needs of your remote team. With a little preparation, organized productivity, and clear steps for team members to connect in other ways, asynchronous collaboration can be a long-term solution to remote work and unproductive meetings. 

We’ve outlined three solutions to overcome the challenges of asynchronous collaboration below. 

Go in prepared

Asynchronous collaboration should have some of the same flow and structure as a traditional meeting. Without this, it’s easy for employees to get off track and for the goal of your collaboration not to be met. 

Team leaders and managers must set out four common criteria for each remote meeting or collaboration: 

•  The goal 

• The agenda 

• Notes so all employees understand how and what to contribute

• A list of participants expected to contribute to the collaboration 

The more prepared team members and leaders are before asynchronous collaboration, the more likely it is to be effective. 

Set clear expectations 

With an asynchronous meeting or collaboration, it’s understood (and expected) that the team members will be in different time zones or not available to meet at the same time. 

It is important to set clear expectations and deadlines, so that all team members know what is expected of them in this format. For example, you could ask that all of those participating make their contributions within 24 hours, holding everyone accountable and ensuring that feedback is given within a timely manner. 

Use technology to collaborate and stay connected

Asynchronous meetings can’t take place without the use of technology, allowing team members to connect, share their best ideas, and collaborate no matter where they are located.

We suggest using a messaging tool along with a visual collaboration space to stay connected and make sure everyone’s ideas are captured. 

Tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams allow team members to connect remotely in an instant-messaging type scenario. For one-off questions or debriefing following a remote meeting, or just as a way to get to know each other and chit-chat throughout the day, these are the perfect tools.

For asynchronous collaboration, Stormboard provides a shared digital workspace where team members can generate ideas, hold meetings, manage projects, and contribute content in their own voice, on their own time.

Are you interested in working Stormboard into your asynchronous collaboration? Sign up for a FREE trial now!

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About the Author
Celina Dawdy is a freelance writer in Edmonton, Alberta. When she isn’t writing, she’s volunteering and spending time with her three dogs.

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