Do You Need Document Collaboration Software?

About the author

Cheryl Smith

Senior Content Writer

Cheryl Smith has been writing and managing proposals since 1998. Shipley trained, she has helped establish proposal centers and advised on capture strategy, coached orals teams and lead marketing, communications and knowledge management programs. Cheryl is a graduate of The George Washington University with degrees in Theatre, Communications and Literature.

Content is isolated across multiple files, making it difficult to access related data. This leads to a slow, serial development process.

Writing comes to a halt for review. For reviews and production, the team must collect and compile subdocuments and collate a variety of files and versions. Then touch every page, paragraph and sentence to correct formatting disrupted by the development process.

This takes valuable time away from review cycles and the revision stage. Manually tracking and communicating the team’s progress and the document’s status via email and phone calls is frustrating and inefficient. This leads to delays and missed deadlines.

"We still assume that documents are files. Increasingly, they are not. Documents can be assembled sets of objects, with context and meaning wrapped around them (i.e., metadata). Or for truly cloud-native authoring tools, documents are Blobs in a giant cloud database, never files at all. Yet many of our popular content management systems are designed to manage files." - Forrester

Expert and contributor silos are inefficient for two main reasons: they disrupt information transfer, and they create an environment where it's difficult and time-consuming to share ideas.

Traditional document processing systems and email chains find each contributor working in a silo. Delayed communication wastes valuable contributor time. Contributors work in different documents, often lose track of the original content, and work in the wrong document version. Experts can’t see what other contributors are working on, leading to redundant effort and conflicting information. Hand-offs are manual and disjointed. This leads to reduced productivity.

Feedback loops become slow and cumbersome. Reviewers can’t see what other reviewers are commenting on, leading to conflicting feedback. Contributors only see feedback after review, leading to clarification questions that delay revisions. This makes it difficult to identify potential roadblocks and hold individuals accountable for their contributions. You’ve got dozens or even hundreds of emails from different individuals working on the document. Each with a different document version containing pieces of information with dozens of different names and formats. You waste time compiling, undoing, and incorporating changes and often rewriting copy to page limits and the final format.

"There are myriad reasons why work is done in silos. The question is: Can you as the CIO effectively deliver on the information and technology (I&T) needs of the enterprise with the silos that exist? If not, then the team needs to shift from working in silos to working more collaboratively." - Gartner"

The primary issue with information overload is its destructive impact on decision-making and productivity. As your team gets to work, the search for content begins. Reusable company overviews, project descriptions, and methodologies are scattered across various folders and drives, personal folders, and email attachments. Searching for relevant content is like finding a needle in a haystack. This wastes valuable time.

Unaware of existing resources, contributors start from scratch. They recreate existing resources and duplicate effort. Outdated information creeps into your documents. Messaging and formatting gets mixed up. This leads to more fact checking and major revisions, as well as reformatting. Different draft versions fly back and forth via email, making it difficult to keep track of changes. Important edits get lost. Feedback piles up but no one knows if it's accurate or if it’s been applied. Revised documents also pile up, causing more version control issues. Everyone keeps asking, “which version is the latest?” This leads to confusion and delays.

Email and file-sharing systems are inherently vulnerable to interception, hacking, and unauthorized access. What happens if you inadvertently send an email attachment to the wrong address? If you make a simple spelling mistake or commit an oversight? Once it's sent, it's difficult to control it's distribution and ensure it remains confidential.

Email lacks granular access control, making it impossible to restrict who can view or download shared documents. Email servers are vulnerable to hacking attempts. Email attachments are often sent unencrypted, leaving data vulnerable to interception. Once a file has left the security of your ecosystem, it is very difficult to retrieve or limit the exposure of your sensitive information to unknown parties. Even with the best of intentions, files end up being saved on unsecured devices, especially mobile appliances, which do not meet the required IT security standards of your infrastructure.

If you’re working with sensitive or confidential data and information, you understand that security is paramount. You must adhere to strict compliance requirements. You must ensure the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information. You must also balance these protections with secure availability and access.

Permissions are not granular enough. You can only restrict access to the document, not its subsections where tasks are assigned. This means you cannot implement security measures that require only specific team members have access to certain content. Permissions are not role-based. You can’t assign team members specific tasks and deadlines that drive your workflow. Contributors are confused about their responsibilities. Experts are confused about next steps. Everyone turns to email, which side-steps your security protocols. This stalls your development process and puts your business at risk.

If you can’t comply with document regulations and standards, you face disqualification. Even if you're not disqualified, failure can significantly impact your evaluation score. It suggests a lack of attention to detail, an inability to follow instructions, or a potential disregard for necessary regulations. This impacts your chances of winning the bid.

You have manual task assignments and version control, making it difficult to track edits. There is no audit trail, no user names or time stamps for content creation, edits, and approvals. This makes it impossible to track edits and accountability. This means you cannot answer any questions about the history of the document. Your document development is scattered across your organization and siloed with each contributor, making it difficult to track and enforce compliance. You can’t control access to ensure only authorized contributors can edit compliant information. This means that with every version you receive and every document you compile, you must recheck compliance. This is time-consuming and prone to human error.

Document reviews are a crossroads for your team; where you scrutinize your content, spot errors, and identify opportunities for improvement. The resulting feedback is a roadmap to a more compliant, higher quality, more compelling document. The faster you can review documents, the faster you can revise documents - and the more documents you can write. The traditional serial document development process brings writing to a halt for reviews. Access is manually denied. Subsections are manually pulled from the system, compiled, and reformatted. Then they are sent out via email for review. This consumes valuable time.

Once a reviewer finds time to review, they are reviewing and providing feedback in a silo. They can’t see what other reviewers are thinking. They can’t ask experts questions. When it’s time to revise, reviewer feedback conflicts. There is no feedback loop to continue the conversation and clarify feedback except email. No audit trail for writing, reviewing or approvals. This leads to sloppy revisions and uncertain sign-offs.

Your document has three volumes, each with multiple documents and each written by a village of experts. You established a document layout and formatting, but as everyone writes, the formatting and numbering gets overwritten and cluttered. This distracts your contributors, making it difficult for them to focus, disrupting their flow. This means they are compelled to “fix it,” taking time away from writing.

Expert #1 uses Times New Roman with double spacing. Expert # 2 prefers Garamond with single spacing. Expert #3 pulls in content from a number of old proposals, all with their own different formatting styles. When it comes time for review, document development comes to a screeching halt. This means you have to reformat and standardize the documents again, while everyone waits. When it's time to submit? You have to touch every page, paragraph, and sentence again. This means a last-minute sprint that burns the midnight oil and threatens the deadline. Or submitting a sub par document.

The amount of time wasted on manual, repetitive tasks varies significantly by industry and role. However, several studies have highlighted the substantial time investment in repetitive manual work. Basically, you established your document creation process to help you avoid the missteps that can derail development. But, overtime, things change, and repetitive tasks naturally creep in, slowing you down.

You might scoff at this, at something as simple as data entry. “It’s just typing,” you might say. But here's the reality: even small amounts of time spent typing and copying and pasting adds up fast. Entering the same client information is tedious and prone to error. Is it up-to-date? Did it come from the right source? Are there typos? Correcting the same client information across multiple sections and documents is time-consuming. This takes valuable time away from improving document quality.

Reformatting consumes more time, while making your entire team wait. You establish layout and formatting to begin development. You compile documents and reformat for every review You compile and reformat again for submission. That is a real drag on the process and your progress. That is a lot of time you could be investing in more documents.