1

JANNA Corporate
400 S English Rd
Tucson, AZ, 85733

Date: October 23, 2020

To: Sharon Christian,

Chief Executive Officer.

From: Jorge Gomez, Editor

Alberto Bennett, Assistant Manager
Nadia Flores, Reporter
Nicole Torres, Team Manager
Ayannah Peterson, Cheerleader

Subject: Recommendation Report for New Collaboration Tools to

Improve Communication
Dear Sharon Christian,

Our management team has discovered an efficient communication process through collaboration
tools which will increment productivity and enhance employee interactions within your business.

The purpose of our report “Selecting a Collaborative Tool for the Improvement of
Communication During a Pandemic at JANNA Corporate: A Recommendation Report” is to
provide evidence before the implementation of the collaboration tools. We have succeeded in the
completion of finding primary and secondary research results and have investigated the process
and effectiveness of those collaboration tools in question. During the pandemic, our team was
able to find the best collaborative tools to improve communication in a business environment
like yours.

Our management team has carried out these tasks by performing a study reviewing different
collaborative tools that have and have not worked in a business. These tools include instant text
messaging, zoom, emails, in person staff meetings, WhatsApp, and many others. We have
constructed a survey that consisted of 11 questions regarding user experience with collaborative
tools. This questionnaire had a total of 25 responses from various age groups who answered this
survey. The survey was a crucial element to our understanding of the collaboration tools from the
perspectives of various backgrounds of people.
 2

Many of our secondary research also states that these collaborative tools have been used in their
studies (Simon, 2015). Based on these results, we can conclude that there should be a separation
between social interaction and workforce interaction tools to provide the best communication in
the workplace (Sun et al., 2018). Our main findings were that many of these participants in this
study were employed and would say their employer’s communication should be improved. The
participants stated that there is room for improvement in terms of employee interactions,
communication of information, and would consider using another collaborative tool to improve
communication at their workplace. The most common collaborative tool these participants use in
their workforce is email, instant text messaging, zoom, and in-person staff meetings.

We recommend having a collaborative tool that is strictly business related in order to have easy
communication that is productive and professional among the workplace (Sun et al., 2015).
Using an application that is accessible among different platforms such as smartphones, laptops,
tablets, etc, etc would help individuals communicate and be organized.

Thank you for your trust and consideration of your time in reading our report and letting us
participate in this study. We will continue to send you follow up recommendations, data, and
questions if possible.

If there are any questions, concerns, or needs of clarification,

please do not hesitate to contact our team members at

JANNAemployes@coporate.mail.org

or at 520-319-0012.
 3

Selecting a Collaborative Tool for the

Improvement of Communication

During a Pandemic at JANNA Corporate:

A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Sharon Christain,

Chief Executive Officer.
JANNACorporate

Prepared by: Jorge Gomes, Editor

Alberto Bennett, Assistance Manager
Nadia Flores, Reporter
Nicole Torres, Team Manager
Ayannah Peterson, Cheerleader

October 23, 2020

JANNA Corporate
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 5

Executive Summary 6

Introduction 7

Background 9

Problem Statement 10

Research Methods 11
Task 1: Acquire basic understanding of collaboration tools used in small businesses and teams 11
Task 2: Conduct research consisted of primary research, and group considerations on collaboration
tools 11
Task 3: Assess collaborative tools available for small businesses and teams 12

Results 13
Task 1: Acquire basic understanding of collaboration tools used in small businesses and teams 13
Task 2: Conduct research consisted of primary research, of staff on attitudes and knowledge on
collaboration tools 13
Task 3: Assess collaborative tools available for small businesses and teams 15

Managing Conflict from a Distance 15

Technology Training 15

Technology Troubleshooting & Support 16

Conclusions 16
Getting to know the responder 16
Team experience and team communication 16
Team collaborative tools 17
Recommended collaboration tool 17

Recommendation 18

References 19

Appendix: Annotated Bibliography 21

Appendix: Collaboration Tools Questionnaire 26

 5

Acknowledgements
JANNA Corporate required members from this company to spend their time and resources to
find an appropriate and productive application to improve communication among this business
during this pandemic. These members took precautions and did everything virtually instead of
creating this report in person. In order to have access to these sources and information Sharon
Christian, CEO, has led us in the right direction.

Given all the information we were able to find, we would like to first thank Sharon Christian for
all of her recommendation and time spent with our team. It has been a great learning experience
that will benefit all staff members. Also, the University of Arizona had provided us the
opportunity to research secondary sources and build a reliable survey to obtain results.

For the participants who answered our survey, we are extremely grateful that they took the time
out of their day to answer these survey questions without receiving a reward for doing so. These
participants have helped us conduct primary data for the collaborative tool we will be
recommending our CEO.

We want to give thanks to the staff members of JANNA Corporate for still maintaining a
professional and productive attitude during these difficult times. Our ultimate goal is to have the
best collaborative tool that will improve communication for all staff members in this company.

Our staff have been adapting to all the recent changes due to the pandmemc, but continuously
work hard. The members of this recommendation report have been an amazing team to work
with.

We appreciate everyone who has contributed to our findings.

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Executive Summary
To determine the best collaboration tool for communication for our new business, we need to
find an application that is fitted for task management, collaboration, document management,
workflow management and many others. Chief Executive Officer, Sharon Christian, asked us to
conduct a survey, research secondary sources, create an outline, and present our findings and
recommendations.

In this pandemic, our business has experienced a breakdown of communication within

administration. By default, we are trying to find the best collaborative tool that could be
available on multiple platforms for the employees of JANNA Corporate. All of our staff
members have some sort of smart technology that could be used in the work environment and
from home.

To carry out our study, we completed multiple tasks that were described in our proposal of
September 18, 2020: we studied different collaborative tools among various workforces and
schools; distributed a questionnaire to different employees from completed businesses; we even
sent a questionnaire to Sharon Christian to receive her input. Then we analyzed our data and
findings to write this report.

From our primary data, one of the main findings was that the majority of our participants have
experienced working in teams. There is always an issue in teams, whether that be
communication, miscommunication, productivity, or low engagement (Mosing et al., 2020).
Majority of these participants would consider using different collaborative tools in their
workforce. The main tools they used were email, instant text messaging, zoom, and in-person
staff meetings in order to communicate. Due to the pandemic, in-person staff meetings may not
be the most effective and safe form of communication. Emails are constantly getting lost,
ignored, and sent to spam (Simon, 2015). There are always technical difficulties with zoom due
to their technical platform or the internet connection. Instant text messages create more of a
social interaction instead of having professional work interactions (Sun et al., 2018). We found
an application that could separate social interactions and business interactions in order to
maintain professionalism and productivity in our business.

Asana is a powerful tool for project management and will increase productivity and
communication (Asana, 2020). Using Asana to improve communication and productivity in our
business is highly recommended and needed. If the “business” membership is purchased, our
company will be paying $24.99 monthly (Asana, 2020). Asana will let our employees visualize
task progress in multiple views including lists and calendars. It will also help us with task
management, collaboration, document management, and many more.
 7

Introduction
To determine the best course of action for selecting a collaborative tool for the improvement of
communication for our business during a pandemic, Sharon Christian, CEO, has asked us to
study multiple issues other business have regarding communication, productivity among the
workforce, and she would like us to present our findings and recommendations regarding these
issues.

Currently, JANNA Corporate has no new collaborative tools to improve communication among
staff members. They are still using the same collaborative tools that were being used before the
pandemic. Their main source of communication is emails, instant text messaging, and pre-
recorded videos in order to inform their employees of upcoming tasks and projects. By default,
this pandemic has really taken this company by surprise, and resulted in miscommunication,
confusion with projects, missed projects, and in general a lack of communication. This situation
is not ideal since this business is striving to expand state-wide, but since we are facing these
underlying issues, they have stopped this company from achieving their goals for 2020. We are
trying to have staff members use Asana on any smart technology platform in order to improve
communication and other issues.

Therefore, Sharon Christian asked some of her employees to find a collaborative tool in order to
improve any communication issues this company is facing.
Tasks Completed for Best Collaboration Tool Usage

1. Create a project proposal, team charter, and

team agreement. We had to discuss collaboration
considerations, start workplaces
in GDrive, and assign individual team roles to
hold members accountable.

2. Provide a recommendation report of research

conducted on various collaborative tools. Consisted
of secondary research, primary research, and group
considerations.

3. Create technical instructions sets that are useful

and usable. These instructions will be influenced
from previous work submissions.

4. Conduct a usability test and memo, we are able to

test our instructions that we could improve from them.

Using Asana could be very beneficial in our new small business because it allows the team to
track their work, manage projects, keep up with deadlines, tame email overload, and have the
best form of communication among employees (Asana, 2020). It is an application to separate
workforce interaction from social interaction devices (i.e. instant messaging, social media,
 8

emails, etc etc). Many of our employees are working from home instead of our offices in order to
reduce the risk of the virus. Our employees were given the devices needed to order to work from
home. These devices consisted of a computer and office phone; we even provided free wifi
modem if needed, but employees would have to pay for their own service.

This application would be easy to access for our employees and would be funded by our
company. It is budget-friendly, which would not cost the company billions of dollars a year. It
would roughly cost about a total of $300 a year, with payments as low as $24.99 monthly. This
application would be beneficial to our company because we will no longer send emails, text
messages, or have to zoom anymore. Those methods of communication could be misinterpreted,
lost, or just be inconvenient for everyone (Simon, 2015). We will finally have an application that
is strictly professional for work.

We recommend, first, downloading this application on everyone’s work device(s) so they can
access it whenever. They could always message any staff member when there is confusion or
need clarification on a project on the app in order to maintain a professional and efficient
conversation.

Asana offers businesses to try a free trial for 30 days, we should incorporate this application for
30 days and see how work communication and productivity improve (Asana, 2020). We should
first inform our staff members of this possible tool being incorporated into this business.
Informing our staff could make them prepared to incorporate and experiment with this tool.

In the following sections, we will provide additional details regarding this application and
research methods, data, conclusions, and our recommendation.
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Background
JANNA Corporate offers health insurance plans to many local businesses. Our ultimate goal is to
offer companies low price insurance plans for individuals and families. We understand the
struggles of not having insurance and how that may influence the career choice of many.
Everyone deserves to receive great quality care for a low price. Helping individuals and their
families live healthier lives and improving their overall well-being is our mission statement.

This business began in November of 2019, and has been successful in getting different local
businesses to use these health insurance plans for their employees. On account of being
successful in providing health insurance plans to many employers, we were in the process of
expanding our locations for late 2020. Due to the pandemic, the goals of JANNA Corporate had
to change their plans and dates for the new locations.

There is only one office for this company, which is located in Tucson, AZ, at 400 S English Rd.
In total, there are 36 full-time employees who work for this business. In spite of the pandemic,
20 employees have transitioned working from this location to working remotely from home.
Each employee has been given an office phone and computer in order to work from home. About
14 employees were also given a wifi modem to connect to wireless wifi, but they will need to
provide their own network.

As of April 2020, there are 16 employees, including the CEO, working at the JANNA Corporate
office. The safety protocols have been taken into consideration for the members working at this
location. These protocols include taking the temperatures of each employee before they are
allowed into the building, they will be asked a set of COVID-19 related questions, and will be
required to stay 6 feet away from each other. Each employee will be required to wear a mask and
work in their own cubicle.

This pandemic has negatively impacted workforce communication among employees. As a new
business striving to grow, JANNA Corporate needs to have the best form of communication
among staff members. Having this skill will improve work relationships, keep employees
informed, stay organized, reduce errors on tasks and projects. Lacking in communication will
result in misunderstandings, missed opportunities, missed projects and tasks, and make
employees feel stressed.

Sharon Christian, CEO, has asked our team to find another collaborative tool in order to improve
communication. We have studied many secondary sources, conducted our own primary data, and
found an application that could potentially improve communication and productivity. We
recommend using Asana for our small business in order to improve the work environment. There
is a free 30 day trial businesses could use in order to decide whether or not they would like to use
this application for their company.
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Problem Statement
This pandemic not only affected the plans of the company, but has strongly impacted the
communication among staff members who are working remotely from home and at the
company’s location. It was first noticed in April 2020, when various assignments and tasks were
done incorrectly or were not completed. By default, the company has missed opportunities to
expand locations. Having communication issues has made staff struggle with staying in the loop,
organized, and being productive.

JANNA Corporate is beginning to fall behind on future projects, plans, and goals due to
communication issues. Action is needed if JANNA Corporate wants to continuously stay
successful in providing the best health insurance plans for local businesses and their employees.
 11

Research Methods
In the ongoing pandemic, businesses have been significantly impacted due to the need for abrupt
remote transition and migration to distanced collaboration. As a result, our office has
experienced a breakdown of communication within administration which has directly affected
the work we seek to accomplish. Through our research we will be able to analyze our data and
find the best functioning collaborative tool for JANNA Corporation, a small business, and
provide our findings to Sharon Christian, CEO of JANNA.

To fulfil the analysis requested by Sharon Christian, we separated the project into tasks:

1. Acquire basic understanding of collaboration tools used in small business and teams

2. Conduct research consisted of primary research, and group considerations on

collaboration tools

3. Assess collaborative tools available for small businesses and teams.

Task 1: Acquire basic understanding of collaboration tools used in small

businesses and teams

We had access to a number of scholarly resources and research about collaboration tools. Most
of the key terms when searching for information were: collaborative tools, team collaboration,
virtual collaborations, online team projects. Most of the research that we acquired were peer-
reviewed published articles and journals based on research conducted that lead to their findings.
As expected, most of the articles and journals that we collected were specifically aimed at career
and business size differed from the size and business of JANNA Corporation.

We relied heavily on peer reviewed articles and journals that focused on general collaboration
tool usability and success in online multi-user settings.

Task 2: Conduct research consisted of primary research, and group

considerations on collaboration tools

On October 6, 2020, we sent out 30 staff members an email that provided them with a 11
question survey that was produced in Google Forms. The email and online survey indicated that
the survey would take only a few minutes and that we are seeking information on how to better
improve business collaboration in virtual settings.
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We did consider in the beginning to open the survey to participants online via multiple social
media platforms. We retracted that idea because we realized that we could not make sure the
populations in the survey have or are currently working in teams and if they are working
remotely. For this information we would likely have to include more questions to be able to
differentiate these populations and would make our survey longer.

The questionnaire (including the responses) is located in the Appendix, page 23.

Task 3: Assess collaborative tools available for small businesses and

teams

According to Mosing (2020), a peer reviewed research journal revealed that in an analysis of
online collaboration of choice, Microsoft office and Zoom are the leading platforms in
collaboration with teams. We wanted to know if our staff uses these collaborative tools and how
satisfied they are with them, therefore we included a question in our survey that is targeted to
these tools and their satisfaction rate. (see Results: Task 3 for results) Additionally, we found
popular platforms based on low pricing and features for team collaboration that could be good
options for a new collaboration for small businesses. According to Brown (2020), Asana
collaboration tool would be a good option for business and teams to integrate when trying to
improve team collaborations. We will rely on surveys from staff of JANNA Corporation to
determine perception of popular platforms and any interactions they have had with Asana.
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Results
Task 1: Acquire basic understanding of collaboration tools used in small
businesses and teams
Most small businesses like JANNA Corporation were not prepared for such abrupt changes and
have been utilizing multiple platforms from work collaboration and communication. The current
pandemic has slowed down the business for the company and most employees have decided to
work remotely, most struggling to make the transition. Luckily there are online collaborative
tools and applications that can help teams split up tasks, set deadlines, update completion status,
share documents, and direct messaging. How collaboration tools are focused on individuals,
discourages teams to use these tools. In order to aid online tools to better target teams it is crucial
that the virtual collaboration tool provides examples and focuses on different team dynamics in
order to show user friendly technology, have design and features that meet different group needs.
(Matthews, 2011)

Task 2: Conduct research consisted of primary research, of staff on

attitudes and knowledge on collaboration tools

On October 6, 2020, we sent out 25 staff members an email that provided them with a 11
question survey that was produced in Google Forms. The email and online survey indicated that
the survey would take only a few minutes and that we are seeking information on how to better
improve business collaboration in virtual setting

We received 25 responses, which is 100 percent of the participants who responded. We collect
that the 25 responses accurately represent the small business of JANNA Corporation population.

Here are the maining findings from the business collaboration survey participants:
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Figure 1
What types of collaborative tools have you used?

Note: 87.5% of participants have experience working with collaboration tools. Then we proceed
to ask participants which collaboration tools they have experience using. The top results were a
combination of Instant Text Messaging (83.3%), Phone Calls (87.5%) and Google Applications
(79.2%). See Figure 1. Team Watermelon Business Collaboration Tools graph 2020.
______________________________________________________________________________

Figure 2
Would you consider learning new collaboration tools?

Note: 59% of participants rated the communication between management and employees a 3 or
under on a scale of 1-5, 1 being poor - 5 being Good. See Figure 2. Team Watermelon Business
Collaboration Tools graph 2020.
 15

______________________________________________________________________________

Task 3: Assess collaborative tools available for small businesses and

teams

Our analysis of literature research combined with the business survey responses from
staff at JANNA corporation provided similar results of the most used collaboration tools:
Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and also included phone calls and instant messaging. Although
staff is using the most used collaborative tools, communication and collaboration, staff
satisfaction reflects that there is room for improvement. In the survey, we mentioned
popular collaboration platform Asana, to have a perception if staff have ever used this new
collaboration tool. The results of the survey was 0 percent of JANNA corporation staff has used
this tool.

Managing Conflict from a Distance

While we are completing everything remotely conflict management may be difficult if
communication is not upheld. In order to make sure we are not having any issues or if conflict
does arise we will be able to handle it accordingly with the use of zoom and other platforms.
Asana will be able to change the way people communicate and it will become more effective for
businesses. Asana will improve communication by allowing the viewers different ways to view
tasks such as calendars, lists and Kanban boards which will save time and limit the amount of
going back and forth between tasks. A kanban board is an agile project management tool
designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency while using
cards, columns, and continuous improvement to help teams commit to the right amount of work
and complete their tasks (Rehkopf, 2020).

Technology Training
Training staff on how to use Asana would be a major factor in ensuring the collaboration tool is
providing effective communication for our customers. If Asana would be implemented into their
business they would have a wide range of features such as task management, project portfolio
management, and workflow management for the overall best project management tool (Brown,
2020). With the use of computers or tablets our audience would get the best experience and
results when using our tool.
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Technology Troubleshooting & Support

Technology Troubleshooting and Support will be easily accessible with the use of the support
team. The support team is available online to assist with step-by step instructions for specific
features, an online forum for common unanswered questions, guides, training & webinar courses
to improve your skills, case building for teams, and a developer's guide to customize your Asana
experience (A, 2020). With the use of this online tool someone can access help from any device
such as a phone, tablet, or computer.

Conclusions
In this following section we will be covering the conclusions we have drawn from the answers
received from our questionnaire. There are three main areas within the questionnaire; first
personal information about responder, second team experience/communication, and lastly
collaborative tools.

Getting to know the responder

The results of our questionnaire shows that there is a good mix of people within the age groups
of 16-24 and 25-49. There are some individuals who are in school while they are working, others
are just working, and some are just focused on school. Based on the results of the survey we
found that the responders have gained a considerable aptitude for using technology and online
services. We have concluded that the application tool recommended to improve communication
among our company should be easy to access to all age groups.

Team experience and team communication

Almost every responder stated that they have experience working in teams and seeing as most
are of the younger age group this properly correlates. As of late schools and colleges have
prioritized teaching students team skills since the workforce is all about team projects. Based on
their experience they said that overall communication among the members was simply “okay”.
We concluded that since communication is not optimal then there is a dire need for a tool that is
easy to use, has the necessary features for communication and collaboration.
 17

Team collaborative tools

The responders have also shown to have used collaborative tools when working with their teams.
Most have stated that they commonly used a form of instant messaging(text, application), email,
or online meeting applications(zoom, skype). Despite the responders stating they found these
tools reliable, easy to use, relative instant replies a great percentage have stated communication
is only “okay”. Our team has come to the conclusion that this company is in desperate need of a
collaborative tool in order to enhance communication and work productivity.

Recommended collaboration tool

During this pandemic there have been a lot of businesses that have converted to remote working;
as well as schools/colleges converting to online learning. Our data showed us that a vast number
of the responders show technological prows and experience of using collaborative tools, but find
it that communication among team members is not optimal. Through secondary research our
team has found a collaboration tool that will enhance team communication and overall
performance, and that tool is asana.com. Asana has features that allow scheduling, team
management, resource management, document management, team collaboration, and mobile app
access. Other features include cloud storage, messaging, and online file submission like Google
Drive, Dropbox and Slack. While there are similar collaboration tools asana has a focus to
provide this service for small to medium businesses, which matches perfectly with our growing
company. Asana offers a free service that has limited features but allows collaboration to up to
15 people and the limited features are sufficient for small projects.
 18

Recommendation
We recommend that the JANNA Corporation CEO pursue the following recommendation.

Option: Implementing New Team Management Tool

We recommend implementing Asana, a collaborative tool designed for teams and small to
medium businesses welcoming the opportunity to grow. Asana is a cloud based platform that
allows users to access their projects from anywhere in the world, thus making it a great option
for remote workers during a pandemic. Asana is budget-friendly, offering payments as low as
$24.99 monthly. We believe that it is essential to implement a new collaboration tool designed
specifically for businesses to produce seamless and productive communication among the
workplace. Asana is a dynamic user friendly program designed with organizational team
dynamics in mind. Asana is easily accessible among various technological platforms such as
smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Choosing Asana means choosing to stay in touch and
organized.
 19

References

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Appendix: Annotated Bibliography

Brown, F. (2020). Asana vs. Monday: Comparing Two Of The Biggest Names In Project
Management - TechnologyAdvice. Retrieved 6 October 2020, from
https://technologyadvice.com/blog/information-technology/asana-vs-monday/

In this website the author takes the time to compare and contrast two of the most recent
collaborative softwares/applications that have caused a buzz. These two softwares are
Asana.com and Monday.com, however Asana came out before Monday. Both softwares
offer features for task management, collaboration, document management, workflow
management, project portfolio management, and more. This was very helpful to read
because it broke down the essentials of each software, making it easy to understand
advantages and disadvantages of the softwares. Our team decided to recommend Asana
because it has shown to be a great tool for small to medium sized businesses, which is
exactly what we are.

Ivanković, N., Uzelac, N., & Domović, R.(2020). Usage of Collaboration Tools in
Business Activities. Conference Proceedings International Scientific & Professional
Conference Contemporary Issues in Economy & Technology, CIET, 228-235. Retrieved
from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
vid=10&sid=516d48e0-9505-4ed3-9e84-d36e214e5d1a%40sessionmgr4008

In their paper, Usage of Collaboration Tools in Business Activities (2020) authors

Ivanković, et al. support the use of collaborative tools with the use of a research study
which was conducted with a sample group of 52 companies (small and medium). The
survey was shared via social networks and emails in order to determine how companies
keep themselves organized and in touch using collaborative tools. A small number of
respondents use collaboration tools to work with external associates, which suggests that
collaboration tools are primarily used for internal communication. This source will be
useful because the research they conducted yielded results from not just one but 52
businesses in total. They received good data from the participants in regards to how much
more common place collaborative tools are in the workforce.

Jiles, L., & Nathan, B. (2020). Technology and Business Continuity. In Strategic
Finance (pp. 60-62). Institute of Management Accountants. Retrieved from https://web-a-
eboscohost-com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=5bfe8a80-
ee28-41cd-9445-
c1e31c25bff4%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGI2ZQ
%3d#db=bsu&AN=143567345

In the article Technology and Business Continuity authors Loreal Jiles and Barry Nathan
discuss how businesses have what’s known as the business continuity planning (BCP). A
BCP is a business’ step by step plan to recover and possibly prevent future unplanned
emergencies. This article covers four ways businesses can properly plan for contingency
 22

measures for said unforeseen emergencies; this article also has a focus in regard to our
current COVID-19 pandemic. The four ways discussed in the article are remote working,
cybersecurity, network connectivity, and high-quality analysis and efficient operations.
This information will be useful in formulating our own BCP for our business; especially
since it discusses contingency planning during the pandemic.

Lofters, A.K., Slater, M., Nicholas, E., & Leung, F. (2016). Facebook as a tool for
communication, collaboration, and informal knowledge exchange among members of a
multisite family health team. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 9(1), 29-34.
https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy3.library.arizona.edu/ehost/detail/detail?
vid=8&sid=8dc6622a-9daf-4fe7-a510-d4c540443a6b%40pdc-v-
sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=26869796&db=cmedm

The authors of the survey conducted by The Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare was
created to evaluate and implement a private Facebook group to improve collaboration and
communication within members (115) of a healthcare group. Being set in a multisite FHT
in Toronto, Ontario, the experiment consisted of a certain number of health professional
participants including physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, dieticians, psychologists,
social workers, chiropractors, etc. Through the usage pattern and perceptions of the
members in the Facebook group, they have analyzed the performance or behavioral
activity of the members in the group to conclude whether or not the collaborative tool is
effective in its function. In the survey, it “included questions about demographics,
patterns of formal and informal communication, patterns of use of the Facebook group,
the perceived benefits and harms, and suggestions for improvement.” Based on this
survey, one can conclude that the targeted audience of the experiment are those related to
the medical field but can broaden the spectrum of the use in Facebook as a collaborative
tool.

Matthews, T., Whittaker, S., Moran, T., & Yuen, S. (2011). Collaboration personas.
Proceedings Of The 2011 Annual Conference On Human Factors In Computing Systems
- CHI '11. doi: 10.1145/1978942.1979272

In Collaboration Personas: A New Approach to Designing Workplace Collaboration

Tools’s Tara Matthews, et al. they point out major problems that workplace collaboration
tools face when targeting entire groups. The authors first start by focusing on how
collaboration tools are focused on individuals, which discourages groups who will use
these tools. The authors propose a notion of collaboration personas in order to aid
collaboration tools to be better targeted to groups. These collaboration personas are
inferential descriptions of typical groups, which would include details of the design and
features of the collaboration tools. Concluding that by providing examples and focusing
on group dynamics they can show how collaborative tools can better meet the needs of
the groups work.

Mosing, T., Schmidt, S., Plietzsch, S., Trabert, T., Dijk, S., & Lehmann, C. (2020). The
Paradox of Choice in Online Collaboration: Platforms and Tools. Proceedings of ISPIM
Conferences, 1-14. Retrieved from
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http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
vid=4&sid=516d48e0-9505-4ed3-9e84-d36e214e5d1a%40sessionmgr4008

In their paper, The Paradox of Choice in Online Collaboration: Platforms and Tools
(2020) Mosig, et al. aims to analyze how user preferences can be applied to determine
appropriate collaboration tools and concludes with an illustration of several decision-
making processes for both managers and employees. Due to the coronavirus pandemic
we have not only forced numerous businesses to rapidly adopt a remote mind-set but also
it has presented them with a number of challenges. The author Mosig, et al. supports the
use of collaborative tools with Theoretical Underpinning and using decision-making
procedures that reduce complexity by providing a structured process. The purpose for this
paper is to address the paradox of choice in the context of collaboration tools by both
introducing and discussing available decision-making procedures as well as studying the
relation between feature preferences and the preferred choice of collaboration tool.

Newman, S. A., Ford, R. C., & Marshall, G. W. (2020, October). Virtual Team Leader
Communication: Employee Perception and Organizational Reality. International Journal
of Business Communications, 57(4), 452-473. Retrieved from https://web-a-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=29ce4898-1eb1-4be7-
930e-5faad5f62402%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=145322911&db=bsu

Virtual Team Leader Communication: Employee Perception and Organizational Reality

is a journal article in which authors Sean A. Newman, et al. conducted a study on a
human resource outsourcing firm; this was accomplished by collecting 458 responses
from 68 teams. This study had a focus on the effectiveness of a team leader’s ability to
use communication tools and techniques to positively influence the team’s performance.
Along with the team leader’s ability and skills the study also investigated the connection
between trust in the leader to overall team performance. In the article they defined a
virtual team to be “‘whose members use technology to varying degrees in working across
locational, temporal, and relational boundaries to accomplish interdependent tasks’
(Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004, p.808)”. Based on their findings they found that the
stronger the trust in the team leader the higher the overall team performance. This will be
helpful to know since the focus of our report is for a collaborative tool to use during the
pandemic.

Simon, P. (2015). Message not received: why business communication is broken and how
to fit it. Web. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uaz/reader.action?
docID=1896000

In Message Not Received: Why Business Communication is Broken and How to Fix it,
Phil Simon talks about how many executives, sales people, consultants, and even rank-
and-file employees are bad at communicating in their work force. He first states that
many individuals assume they are incredible speakers and writers in their business
because they are using sophisticated terms in their communication. He also says
businesses lack communication because they focus on a single form of communication in
 24

order to get their message across. For example, many businesses use email as their
primary source of communication, which is not a bad idea, but could potentially result in
communication issues. Simon demonstrates how intelligent individuals and organizations
are using simpler language and different collaborative technologies in order to
communicate effectively in the workforce. This book was published in 2015, and
contains recent issues some businesses may be facing and how it could be resolved using
new collaborative tools.

Sun, L., Lin, C., & Wu, M. (2018) A tale of two communication tools: discussion-forum
and mobile instant-messaging apps in collaborative learning. British journal of
educational technology, 49(2), 248 - 261. Retrieved from https://bera-journals-
onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy3.library.arizona.edu/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/bjet.12571

In A tale of Two Communication Tools: Discussion-forum and Mobile Instant-messaging

Apps in Collaborative learning, these authors focus on two individual technological tools
that benefit the workplace or schools. They first talk about a study that directly compared
the learning-related uses of an online discussion forum to a mobile instant messaging app.
They asked their participants to use one of the two communication tools during their first
three learning activities, then they asked them to switch to the other app in order to see
what they prefer. They realized that these students preferred using an online discussion
forum because it resulted in more communication towards education while the mobile
instant-messaging app resulted in social interactions. Online discussion collaborative
tools may benefit businesses and schools more due to having different platforms for
social interaction and professional communication.

Wahl, L., & Kitchel, A. (2016). Internet Based Collaboration Tools. Retrieved from
http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/10.4018/IJeC.2016010103

In internet based Collaboration Tools, Wahl and Kitchel examine digital tools that help
facilitate virtual collaborations. The authors first detail digital tools for a better
understanding of online based business collaboration tools, by reviewing their features
and benefits. Wahl and Kitchel reviewed 33 peer reviewed published articles that focused
on online tools that support business collaboration, and these ideas are included in this
journal. Their purpose is to guide users in an appropriate selection of a digital
collaboration tool, by providing a clear definition, description of benefits,limits, and
features of each tool and research that has been made on them. The authors seem to have
people who are in need as an effective web-based collaborative tool for themselves or for
a team audience in mind because of the insight and knowledge they give about the digital
tools.

Werker, C, & Ooms, W. (2019). Substituting face-to-face contacts in academics’

collaborations: Modern communication tools, proximity, and brokerage. Studies in
Higher Education (Dorchester-on-Thames), 45(7), 1431-1447. https://web-b-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy3.library.arizona.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=10&sid=8dc6622a-9daf-4fe7-
a510-d4c540443a6b%40pdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=EJ1260985&db=eric
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The authors’ Claudia Werker and Ward Ooms have analyzed face-to-face contact in
collaborations within close proximity and distant collaborations. The purpose of this
experiment is to provide different “substitutes” to see the change in results of effective
mechanisms of coordination and communication. The conclusive data is analyzed based
on elements like mutual visual and physical contact that may affect the transferring,
interpreting, and analysis of this exchange of information. The substitutes of the
experiment act as potential replacements for working collaboratively without the close
proximity of natural communication.
 26

Appendix: Collaboration Tools Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire our team distributed to our fellow colleagues, including the company’s
CEO. We received 25 responses. The bolded number percentages show the amount of responders
that selected each answer of the questionnaire.

Business Collaboration Survey

Link to survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bsjTv-Pse7D-
NIRLs_VflEWnFK_7X9VTbyKcRa1nVwE/edit

1. What age group are you in?

a. 16-24 years 79.2%
b. 25-49 years 20.8%
c. 50-65 years 0%
d. Over 65 years 0%
2. Are you currently in school?
a. Yes 79.2%
b. No 20.8%
3. Are you currently working?
a. Yes 70.8%
b. No 29.2%
4. Do you have experience working in teams?
a. Yes 95.8%
b. No 4.2%
5. From a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the communication of management with their
employees?
a. 1 4.5%
b. 2 13.6%
c. 3 40.9%
d. 4 22.7%
e. 5 18.2%
6. What method of communication is most used when collaborating with
coworkers/teammates?
a. Messaging(text, application) 27.1%
b. Meeting(face-to-face, video, phone call) 40.6%
c. Email 22.6%
d. Google Drive 9.1%
 27

7. Do you have experience utilizing collaborative tools?

a. Yes 87.5%
b. No 12.5%
8. Would you consider learning new collaboration tools?
a. Yes 79.2%
b. No 4.1%
c. Maybe 16.7%
9. What types of collaborative tools have you used? Check all that apply
a. Instant Text Messaging (Group Me, WhatsApp, Messenger) 83.3%
b. Phone Calls 87.5%
c. Zoom 66.7%
d. Google Applications (Meet, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, etc.) 79.2%
e. Asana.com 0%
f. Monday.com 0%
g. Microsoft Applications (Project, Outlook, etc.) 54.2%
10. What features do you like most about the collaborative tools you have experience with?
Responders commented that the tools they have used are easy to use, reliable, easy access
to, instant updates/replies, allows file sharing, and live online collaboration.
11. Which method of communication do you receive the most timely response from?
a. Messaging (text, application) 57.4%
b. Email 4.8%
c. Meeting (face-to-face, video, phone call) 24%
d. Google Drive 14.3%