Where does the “tools” discussion fit into when designing a digital workplace?

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to design digital workplaces or “offices in the cloud.” These environments enable companies to allow flexible and remote working for their teams. I also teach the digital literacy, fluency, communication and collaboration skills needed to work in these modern technology-rich workplaces.

In a piece entitled Fall in Love with Managing Virtual Teams Using These Simple Strategies over on Small Business Trends, Pratik Dholakiya makes this observation: “Virtual teams are the way of the future. Slowly but surely, businesses of all sizes are waking up to the tremendous potential that remote hiring brings.”

We believe this statement to be true.

This piece also has some great tools that can be used to make working in a virtual team productive.

Just a word of caution though. Jumping to the tools discussion is a common mistake. We always advocate the use of the POST acronym when designing your virtual team digital workplace – notice the tools piece of the puzzle comes last:

People
Objectives
Strategy
Tools