A new era of remote work and collaboration is upon us. And it is time to build a “new normal” as we have this excellent opportunity for a reset.
I have mixed feelings about Google, but leaving that aside, for now, let us have a look at their Google Docs platforms and how to use it to collaborate with your team.
My idea here is to share with you what is possible so you can make an informed decision if this is something you can use to support your project and your people. If you do like these features, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials on how to use them.
As you go through this keep in mind the “sunk costs” of using old technology (MS Word… I am looking at you!):
– I am used to it, and it works just fine
– I don’t have time to learn something new
– This is too confusing…
Note that this is your brain resisting change. When you evaluate a new tool, honestly consider the question: “if I were a master as this would this help my project and my team?” and try to ignore the “I don’t want change” mind chatter.
Back to business!
To get the most out of this tool, you will need a Google Account. It’s free to get one – free as in you pay with your attention and your privacy. If that is fine with you, then let’s proceed.
Top collaboration features:
1. Multiple Live Editors of the document
This is ideal when you work with your team over a Zoom or Skype call. It allows everyone to open the document on their device and start working on it. The changes will be visible to everyone nearly instantly. No more sharing of Word Documents around!
Tip: it may be a good idea, for some projects, that each editor uses their own color, so you can know later on what you wrote and what others wrote. (This is just a simple solution to this the advanced way is “version control” explained last)
2. Make suggestions instead of edits!
This is based on (or similar to) the MS Word “Track Changes” feature. You need to change your editing mode to “Suggestions,” and now, all the changes you make will have your name attached to them, and they will be next to the old text (instead of overwriting the old text). This feature allows anyone to chime in when doing brainstorm and review. At the end, the author of the document can review all the suggestions and approve or reject them. This is such a powerful tool because you can instantly see on the side of the document if there are changes that you need to review, and you have the name of the person who suggested the change. On top of this, each change gets a comment section where you can ask for clarifications, or you can explain why your suggestion should be accepted.
This is, by far, my favorite tool to use when working on a document that requires the team’s input.
3. Comments
This feature is similar to the previous one. But instead of editing the document in “Suggestions” mode, you select a piece of text and make a comment on it.
This comment will create a discussion box around it. This feature is useful in some cases, but it lacks the quick “accept/reject change” buttons that a suggestion has. So any editing suggestion you make as a comment has to be manually typed into the document later.
Comments are great to give feedback on the text regarding legibility or clarity because you are not suggesting a change, you just need the author to make some clarifications.
4. Assigning Tasks
This tool does not replace a proper project management tool (like Asana or Trello) but, for small teams, it can work wonders! Using the comments or suggestion features, when the discussion box is open, you can notify someone (prefix their name with @), or you can assign that item to someone (prefix their name with +).
The beauty of this is that they get an email notification, so they will know their input is required. And if you have assigned the item to someone, in their google drive view, next to the document name, they will see a number of pending issues that they need to resolve.
I hope it is obvious how this can be used to keep track of what needs to be done in a small project, so you don’t have tasks being forgotten or now knowing who is supposed to work on them.
5. Version History
This is the least used feature, but one of the most powerful. I am a big fan of backups. It allows me to move quickly and to make mistakes, knowing that I have a solid safety net. If I screw up, I can restore the old version, and everything is good again!
For large documents and documents that need to go through many revisions, sometimes it is helpful to see a “history” of how the document grew, what was changed, why, and by whom. Google Docs allows you to do that out of the box because the document has in it a history of the changes. This is tracked automatically, you don’t need to do anything.
You can, however, at some point, label one of the versions as, say, “Final Draft” or “Version 1 – Published” and later one “Version 1.1” and so on. These labels that you create make it easier for you and the team when you go back to look at the timeline to make sense of what are the important edit points.
In software development, this tool is used a lot, and I know how powerful it is. If you are new to this “version control” thing, you may not see the power of it right away, but give it a go in a big project, and you’ll not regret it. You will no longer be afraid you make a mistake, or that someone in the team got in and accidentally destroyed the document with large copy/paste operation. You can always “go back in time,” to when things were in good shape! And when you are no longer concerned with making mistakes, you can allow your creativity to shine!
In conclusion
I’ve stormed through these features. If there is one in particular that you like, look for YouTube tutorials about it and put it to good use!
Go create something amazing!