RSS

RSS, "Really Simple Syndication", is an excellent way for information to be made available to the members of a team. One or more RSS feeds in a project, subscribed to by team members, allows news and information to be quickly and efficiently disseminated across the team.

A number of team support systems and tools are candidates for RSS feeds. Here are a few suggestions:

• An RSS feed on the project wiki will keep team members informed with new content and updated content.
• If your project uses a document repository, an RSS feed generated by the repository will ensure that team members are made aware as soon as new and updated documents become available.
• In a software development team, an RSS feed can be used to notify team members of the status of continuous integration builds.
• Sales teams can have their performance data generated automatically from their CRM systems and summarised in an RSS feed.

The full potential of RSS feeds combined with client news aggregators for use in team communications has yet to be exploited. Once you understand the concept behind RSS, I'm certain you'll discover many exciting and profitable possibilities for your business area.