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Q6 How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Manage Shared Content? 51

Figure 2-12
Example Survey Report

Team surveys are another form of communication technology. With these, one team mem-
ber creates a list of questions and other team members respond. Surveys are an effective way to
obtain team opinions; they are generally easy to complete, so most team members will partici-
pate. Also, it is easy to determine who has not yet responded. Figure 2-12 shows the results of
one team survey. SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com) is one common survey application
program. You can find others on the Internet. Microsoft SharePoint has a built-in survey capa-
bility, as we discuss in Q8.
Video and audio recordings are also useful for asynchronous communication. Key presen-
tations or discussions can be recorded and played back for team members at their convenience.
Such recordings are also useful for training new employees.

Q6 How Can You Use Collaboration Tools

to Manage Shared Content?

Content sharing is the second major function of collaboration systems. To enable iteration and
feedback, team members need to share both project data (such as documents, spreadsheets,
and presentations) and work-product data, as well as project metadata (such as tasks, sched-
ules, calendars, and budgets). The applications teams use and the means by which they share
data depend on the type of content. Figure 2-13 provides an overview. 4

4 Warning: The data in this figure is changing rapidly. The features and functions of both web applications and
cloud drives may have been extended from what is described here. Check the vendor’s documentation for new
capabilities.