Speed. Complexity. Disruption. These are the things companies need to deal with every day if they want to survive and grow. They have to innovate — and this requires a culture that fosters a new breed of hyper-collaborative teams.

Studies confirm: People working in teams innovate faster, achieve better results and report higher job satisfaction. In fact, companies that promote collaborative work are five times more likely to be high performing and are more profitable.

But teams are under pressure to move faster than ever. The highest-performing teams are different. Little about their work resembles what they did in the past. These new teams are constantly collaborating: Their days are filled with a never-ending exchange of information and ideas, working in rapid cycles of iteration. Their tasks are interdependent and their projects fluid.

So how is this new kind of teamwork different from what we’ve always done? Think about the difference between a swim team and a basketball team. Swimmers stay in their own lane, but basketball players interact and transition constantly, relying on each other to win. Teams today need to do that too — navigate a fast-paced flow, bouncing between team members, iterating and improving on each other’s ideas. Everyone is accountable to keep work moving forward.

A New Kind of Work

Many teams today are adopting design thinking methodologies and agile behaviors to structure their work. By understanding their activities and behaviors, we can design spaces to help these teams work in new ways