Leadership

How One Team Uses Desktop Sharing For Just About Everything and You Can Too

By Wayne Turmel

Updated on: April 13, 2011 / 1:18 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

On the seemingly endless list of tools and tech gizmos every remote team needs should be the ability to share each others' desktops. If you're in IT or tech support that makes sense, (because seizing control is faster and easier for both parties) but what if you're a sales manager, or a project manager? What possible advantage could there be in having access to each other's computers?

It turns out, there's a lot of ways teams should be using these tools. Think about the endless ways we need to communicate over distance: training, meetings, customer support... these tools can handle most of what you need to do and they have several advantages over other tools, not the least of which your IT department probably already uses and has licenses for them. You don't have to beg for vendor approval.

So how can a non-technical function or project team use these tools? Jason Frazier is the IT Director at the Mason McDuffie Mortgage Corporation. He had hundreds of loan officers who needed to connect with each other, with the company and with customers. They happy to use a program called TeamViewer, but there are plenty of solutions ranging from web presentation platforms with a sharing application (WebEx, fuzemeeting and others) to those that are simply desktop sharing (Showmypc, mikogo, Yugma and dozens of others).

Here are some things to consider when choosing a platform:

Who will use it? Are you always going to be connecting to the same people all the time? Then a desktop application you can download once and use forever (or at least until the next version upgrade) makes sense. If you're going to constantly have to work with people you haven't worked with before, such as customers or project stakeholders, that five minutes or so it takes to download and install the software becomes a nuisance. In Mason McDuffie's case, they went with a solution that installs quickly because they want their external customers to be relaxed enough to talk business, not get all frustrated because they can't get the meeting started. Ease of use is critical to an experience for project teams as well. If you're grumpy before you even start the meeting, how productive will you be?
Does it work across platforms? Many of my clients have invested in one-stop solutions that tended to be not so one-stop when they realize that employees can use it fine but customers have a problem. Does it work on Macs? Smartphones? How much bandwidth will it suck up? If you don't know what others will use, go for the broadest possible solution.
Does IT already have a solution they like? While full-service web presentation and collaboration tools are great, they are also expensive and can be a hassle to implement. Do you have the time and patience to go through a full vendor selection process? Is IT receptive to the idea or does anything new send them into a wagon-circling security panic? You can start with simple desktop sharing fairly quickly and easily. Start with what you have and then work your way up to what you really want.
Budget is only one consideration. Don't get that look on your face, it's true. Free solutions are available, but they don't always do everything you need. The expensive ones aren't necessarily right for your team either. Form follows function and all that. If you get the right tool the first time, you may not have to invest in redundant technology. Surely the budget holders will like that idea.
Why would I want to even attempt this? You know all those hours you've wasted on the phone with technically illiterate team members or customers saying things like "okay, now hit enter.... it's on the far right side of your keyboard.... yes....just do it..."? You can just do it yourself. Of course, if you want people to use a tool themselves, they can no longer feign ignorance because coaching and training can be done almost instantaneously. "Okay, show me what you're doing" will help reduce frustration for all concerned. Are people not using that new software your company invested in? Coaching ramps up adoption time (or at least enforcement and sometimes that's important, too).

Jason and his team found that the time saved in getting set up quickly and lowering user frustration was worth the investment. Maybe keeping IT off your back while you actually get your job done is your motivator. Whether it's using a feature of your existing tools that you're unfamiliar with, or some entirely new solution, managers should look to desktop sharing as another way to keep people connected and on track.

photo by flickr user jurvetson CC 2.0