What is your preferred collaboration style when working remotely?

We have 2 main locations, apart from each other by 250km (150 miles).   For years, we relied on conference calls (when not only 2 people), room with video facilities or making the travel to catch up with the other group.

None of these 3 methods were convenient.   Putting a Polycom Soundstation on a conference table and having 10 people in each rooms talking is not the best experience.

Having video facilities within some rooms was a bit better but you had to be in the room (pre Covid setup).

And using the company shuttle to travel 150 miles was exhausting!

Now, with Teams we can get much more efficiencies and more importantly, a better employees experience. 

And chat is a huge part of today's efficiency.   Calling someone for a question ends-up by taking 30 minutes because you will talk of the weather, the kids, etc.    Chatting is much more straight to the point!

I usually like to do a face to face with the team. I did a video TEAMS call to a sysadmin one day and he was in the middle of his commute home. I told him I could call back when he was home safe but they're always skilled at multi tasking 😅.

Amazing

I think the key here is knowing WHEN to use each. A lot of work can be shifted to async text communication. But not all. Sometimes a phone call is more effective. Sometimes a topic benefits from the added fidelity of a video call. Sometimes a recorded video is the best option. This is the challenge and beauty of the digital workplace. There's a good use case for all the mediums, but we have to learn those and practice them.

I've taken to turning the camera off recently and reverting to the classic phone call.

I've found I can be much more engaged in the conversation as I am able to move away from my desk, and also because I don't have to focus on a video appearance.

It has its place for sure, but video off is not a bad thing.