I've been asked this question many times and this topic seems to be a high priority for many companies. Everyone wants to have high-performing teams to move quickly and deliver value to customers as soon as possible. Many factors could affect your team's performance, and today I would like to share some tips on how to help your teams to become more productive.
Bring projects to teams instead of teams to projects
Typically, teams are formed to support upcoming projects. As soon as the project ends, teams get reformed into other groups or stop existing at all. From leadership's perspective, it may sound reasonable to constantly move resources from one area to another based on where they are needed the most. But what often gets overlooked is that typically newly formed teams are far from being productive right away.
Let me get into more details. Every team goes through four stages of psychological development: forming, storming, morning, performing. It takes up to 6 months for an average team to get to the performing stage, during which they work most efficiently. If you add different nationalities or those for whom English is not their first language, it takes even longer. For that reason, whenever you want to regroup teams or move people around, keep in mind that you lower their productivity. Bringing work to already existing teams will always get you the better and faster delivery in comparison to newly formed groups.
Give people an opportunity to learn and try new things
I conduct many interviews, and when I ask people what motivates them at work, the most common answer is learning something new. When people explore new things, they feel more accomplished, and their confidence builds up. Hence they are not afraid to share what's their mind, show initiative, and become more engaged at work. Typically, their performance increases as well.
For that reason, create an environment which supports learning new things. For example, if your teams work in Scrum, they can spend 10% of their sprint capacity on learning stories; or dedicate a full sprint for learning once per quarter instead. The goal of learning stories could be on getting knowledge transfer from other teams or exploring new technologies. Also, employees could do trainings, both external and internal. Some people could be interested in getting certified in AWS or Microsoft Azure, others in scaled Agile frameworks such as SAFe, and so on. One thing to remember though - learning should not be forced on anyone but rather be the employee's choice.
Conduct personality assessments
Personality types on the team play a significant role as they affect how people interact with each other, view conflicts, and what values they have. When there is a disconnect on a personality level, team members don't understand each other well. Moreover, some unhealthy conflicts can occur, damaging teams' performance overall. Every team would benefit from conducting a personality assessment, which could help team members build better working relationships as they would learn preferred working styles of each other.
Let me give you an overview of the assessment we tried in our teams. We used DISC assessments and were quite satisfied with the results. The idea was that everyone on the team would take an assessment to determine their personality type. There are four of them: (D)ominance, (I)nfluence, (S)teadiness and (C)onscientiousness. Then, they shared their profiles and discussed them as a group. It helped team members see the differences in how different personalities respond to conflict, what motivates them or stresses them out, how they approach problems, etc. It was a great exercise of connecting on a human level and seeing each other "eye to eye."
There is a wide variety of other assessments you can find online. Some are free; others will cost you money. Pick one which works best for your teams.
Let the team interview their teammates
Always have the team interview a potential candidate to join their group. The team members are the ones who will have to interact with a new person every day. Together they will plan, brainstorm, troubleshoot issues, and so on. Only they know all the nuances of the team workflow process, and should be able to check whether an interviewee hits all the checkboxes. Hence, the team's opinion should be accounted for when it comes to selecting a new hire.
Of course, you can always have subject matter experts to check the candidates for hard skills and proper competence. For example, Agile coaches should interview a Scrum Master in Agile knowledge. Technical people should examine developers. However, whenever possible, avoid placing a person on the team without having team members' feedback first.
On average, people spend the majority of their time at work. For that reason, it's essential to bring some fun to the working environment so the work will bring more positive feelings. That will help people to relax and enjoy their time at work more. As a big bonus, they will become more engaged and productive. Nowadays, most of us work remotely due to the pandemic, so I would recommend looking for some virtual activities you can do with your teams. If interested, here is my article TEAM BUILDING EXERCISES FOR VIRTUAL TEAMS.
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