Team coaches are much in need – teams are busier than ever but accomplishing less, with an estimated 25 billion hours lost annually due to ineffective collaboration within Fortune 500 companies.
Some 93% of executives believe that teams could deliver similar outcomes in half the time if they collaborated more effectively, and that only 24% of teams are engaged in mission-critical work, according to a report by Atlassian.
Teams are spread across disjointed goals, drowning in notifications and meetings, struggling to share information, and unsure how to harness artificial intelligence (AI) in their everyday work, finds the Atlassian State of Teams 2024 report.
The report surveyed 5,000 knowledge workers and 100 Fortune 500 executives working across the US, Australia, India, Germany, and France, to learn how their teams were collaborating today.
Some 64% of knowledge workers agree their team is constantly being pulled in too many directions and 70% agree it would be easier to make progress if they had fewer, more specific goals, finds the report. Sixty-five per cent of knowledge workers say it’s more important to quickly respond to messages than make progress on top priorities.
Some 55% of knowledge workers find it hard to track down information despite knowing a lot of people at their job, while 50% have worked on a project and only later found out that another team was working on the same thing. Some 56% say teams at their company plan and track work in different ways, which makes it hard to collaborate.
Half (50%) of knowledge workers and executives don’t use AI on a weekly basis, and 63% of knowledge workers and 79% of executives agree that AI is important, but don’t get how to use it in their day-to-day work.
The report suggests teams stop to ask themselves three important questions: Are we working on the right things? Do we have time to make real progress? Is knowledge easy to find and understand?