Collaboration is easier said than done for most teams.
Poor communication at work has led to 43 percent of workers suffering from burnout, stress and fatigue. Which is why when a team knows how to communicate internally and across departments, it’s worth taking note.
Built In spoke with three Chicago tech professionals about what makes their team’s strategies for communication and collaboration a recipe for success.
Allwyn is a full-service lottery operator, supplier and business partner to North American lotteries.
Your favorite collaboration win — in one quotable line?
We had multiple incredible projects going on at the same time, including making changes to Mega Millions and adding a cashless option to our vending machines, but because of our team's adaptability and dedication to getting things done right on the first try, we were able to not only complete our projects on time, but thrive while doing it.
What metric shows it works?
My favorite — or sometimes least favorite — metric is definitely the task due date. If we aren't getting tasks done on time, it can have a cascading effect, adding pressure on other teams or vendors to make up the time. It's absolutely critical to learn about any deviations to a task due date ahead of time so you can minimize the impact on other teams.
Which ritual keeps teams glued?
A weekly standing meeting or sync-up is definitely our MVP. It's absolutely crucial for us because of multiple projects going on at any given time and dependencies on cross-functional teams.
IMC is a global trading firm powered by a research environment and technology backbone.
Your favorite collaboration win — in one quotable line?
We don’t build tech for its own sake — we build what makes researchers faster and that’s how ideas become trades sooner.
What metric shows it works?
Our north star metric is the researcher’s wall-clock measuring time from initial idea to first experimental outcome. On many workloads, results that once took days now come back in hours — or even minutes. We also watch experiments per researcher per week and time-to-production for proven ideas.
Which ritual keeps teams glued?
Weekly team forums within my group allow us to share updates to surface workstreams, transfer context and spark new ideas tied to a common vision.
Working side-by-side with research shows the line between tech and research is intentionally thin. Engineers dogfood the platform and researchers understand the tech that drives their velocity.
Project working groups and short-term embeds offer focused, time-boxed squads like weekly/bi-weekly touch points with temporary embeddings from partner teams to unblock specs and accelerate delivery.
Organization wide trimester planning aligns datasets, platform capabilities and HPC shape/scale with trading research priorities.
Everyday, organic communications like formal meetings help, but the glue is IMC’s culture — friendly, direct collaboration across offices and a mindset of competing with the market, not with each other.
Hireology’s HR technology empowers businesses to build great teams.
Your favorite collaboration win — in one quotable line?
Partnering closely with sales and customer success helped us transform a repeated customer pain point into a standout experience that reduces workflow friction, meets real market needs and drives faster adoption across our platform.
What metric shows it works?
The most meaningful metric has been feature adoption — seeing customers actively shift to the new experience and rely on it every day. In addition, sales no longer hears this as a top blocker during conversations, which is a clear sign the market sees the value.
Which ritual keeps teams glued?
We stay aligned by bringing every voice to the table! Sales provides us with real-time prospect feedback, customer success joins design reviews and we also sit down with customers to hear directly from them what’s working and what isn’t. When every voice is part of the process, it’s easier to learn fast, adjust quickly and keep moving toward the best version of the product.
