Poor communication is biggest hurdle to business collaboration

Over a third of UK businesses face regular disruption due to miscommunication, with almost half saying it takes up to three hours to decide how to progress business objectives and two-fifths citing unclear communication of project requirements by leadership as the top reason behind having to redo work, according to research from visual collaboration software provider Lucid Software.

The aim of The agile advantage: Transforming collaboration for modern teams study was to reveal how hybrid work teams are trying to become more agile and deliver business value faster. It was created from an online survey of 2,190 knowledge workers fielded between 18 and 24 September 2024. Respondents were screened from a population of full-time staff, aged between 25 and 64, in firms with at least 10 employees.

In addition to the time it took to decide on how to progress business objectives, the study warned that firms could be wasting money on ineffectual meetings that don’t deliver clear action plans, with miscommunication and poor planning affecting day-to-day work.

The latter was shown by 41% of respondents citing unclear project requirements or scope changes and miscommunication with colleagues as the top reasons for redoing work. As a result, just over a fifth of workers felt that their team’s plans only sometimes align with the company’s overall strategic goals.

Additionally, 73% of respondents reported high or complete visibility into their team’s progress, but 30% ranked “unclear project requirements or scope changes” as a top reason for redoing work, indicating a mismatch between perceived progress visibility and clarity in project scope.

Over-reliance or ineffective facilitation of meetings were seen as sources of problems. Regular team meetings or stand-ups were reported as the top way teams tracked progress (74%), and 73% of respondents reported high visibility into team progress. Yet such responses weren’t consistent across team members. Only 53% of entry-level employees reported experiencing high visibility, compared with 81% of department heads, indicating, said Lucid, that these regular stand-ups aren’t necessarily getting everyone the information needed.

Even though the survey revealed the good news that 45% of workers believe adopting new collaboration tools could reduce the time to reach a decision, it also cautioned that wholesale change was needed to overcome communication challenges.

Lucid noted that frameworks such as its Agile platform could greatly enhance efficiency, communication and collaboration. Indeed, the survey found that 69% of respondents who implemented agile practices into their workflows noted improved team efficiency. This, said Lucid, underscored the importance of adopting such technologies to enhance collaboration and efficiency across diverse work environments.

When asked what would help reduce the time to achieve consensus, half of respondents said clear and detailed agendas and goals, and 45% said improved communication and collaboration tools. Lucid highlighted the use of project management software or visual reporting tools to document and track tasks as a way to help ensure that decisions made in meetings did not get lost or forgotten along the way. Such tools, said the company, could also foster asynchronous collaboration, allowing team members to stay on track without needing constant meetings.

“Poor communication and collaboration cost UK businesses valuable time and money, with team members frequently pulled into meetings to rehash the same conversations. Many teams are caught in this cycle because they overuse meetings and lack skills in blending asynchronous and synchronous work practices,” said Lucid Software chief evangelist Bryan Stallings.

“Overcoming this challenge requires firms to change employees’ mindset who have come to rely on these ineffective methods. The first step in this process is investing in education around how agile principles and practices can help. By ensuring everyone is aligned and using these agile methods to collaborate, firms can work more efficiently towards overall business goals, breaking free from a cycle of unproductive meetings.”