Are You manage your team effectively?

How do you manage your team? Is it just a group of people, or do they form an efficient team?

Team - The magic word. We all take care of the team, motivate it, invest in it, integrate it, etc. We want our team to be simply the best.

... And ... Then life comes ...

The market is "difficult", there is a shortage of employees, the budget is always too small, the client is very problematic, people have to work after hours, there is never time for integration and training, and the number of projects only increases

OK. What can we do about it?

Take the actions. Seriously! If we take small appropriate actions, and if we take them successively, after some time we will reach a magical state in which, after the project is completed, we will be able to look at our team and feel pride, not only because the project was a success but also because the team exceeded the limits of what we thought was possible.

How do you do it?

There are no miracles here. There are several elements that need to be addressed and kept an eye on. It won't be easy the first time. And ... the next time you will still have to spend some time :)

1. Recruitment & team composition

Recruitment is a critical stage in the formation of our team. If we have the chance to recruit new people, we must do it carefully.

In the current world where we try to save every 5 minutes, I believe that taking the extra moment to understand the candidates will ultimately bring us much more significant savings in the future. So let's take a few moments more to better understand the candidate's CV or ask a few additional questions during the interview, or let us invite a candidate whose resume is not entirely clear to us but he has the potential

Let us not give in to stereotypes saying that people who have been fired from work or with holes in their life or simply other than the market standard should not be taken into account. On the contrary, such people often (but not always) prove to be more valuable than the average mass.

Before we start looking for new candidates, we also need to think about precisely what kind of people we need. Not in the sense of position but the sense of place in the team. We need to think about what role individual members will play in our team, so that the team is as effective as possible

It may happen that we will have a real star in our team who will prefer large and difficult topics, we can also have people who prefer small and simple tasks. We may have those who can set standards for others and those who will comply with them. Our job is to find the right place for each team member, where he will feel best and where will be able to give the most.

2. Integration

For many managers, the recipe is simple = once in a while we gather everyone for an integration trip and sometimes go out for a beer with the team after work. Nevertheless, we won't achieve any spectacular results if we don't go further.

Integration is a team activity - thanks to it, team members work together more easily and effectively. So we have to find a way for team members to perform more tasks together.

• These can be repetitive activities that require interaction with others, which are performed periodically by someone else.
• These can be short trips to conferences (usually they are cheap, and one day outside the company without a sophisticated agenda gives you a chance to change the team's optics.)
• These can be workshop tasks in the office during which all team members will be involved and where the result will be the work of the team (e.g., the team can come up with a new process or internal procedure.) 
• These can be internal training done by team members for colleagues.

And more ...

3. Tailored Tasks

Each team member is different and has a predisposition to something different. Our goal is, therefore to find the right tasks for each individual. Tasks in which he/she will be able to prove itself 100%, e.g:

The best developer may feel great being able to solve a difficult problem or find a well-hidden error. However, if we ask him to write documentation of what he did - he may take it as the greatest punishment. We may also have team members who will not write the algorithm as quickly as others, but based on frameworks created by others, they will refine the application and make small adjustments.

So, tasks depend on the environment and predispositions of team members. Dynamic matching of these tasks is also essential so that everyone is happy to do what they do. Keep in mind that preferences can change even a few times a year, so it's a continuous process.

4. Management

Here are the basic elements:

• We do not use micromanagement,
• We give as much freedom as possible, but we firmly require a minimum of artifacts necessary for the functioning of the project.
• We check the status of work regularly, but not often
• We help! - Helping is the most crucial point here - our goal is to help our people achieve their goals because they work for us.

5. Motivating

What motivates people ...?

There is nothing new to discover ...

• VISION
• GOAL
• Participation in decision making
• Responsibility
• Teamwork
• Communication and Integration
• Manager's person - description below
• Rewards – not money based
• Money :) - Yes, there are some conditions in which this method works - but this is the last element on the list, and the situations where we should directly use money as a motivator are very rare. I invite you to my article on motivating and money.

6. Appreciation

Every employee from time to time exceed the average level and do something exceptionally well. It is important to appreciate it and to appreciate it publicly so that others also want to feel appreciated.  In this way we can significantly increase the efficiency of the entire team.

From the other side, if it happens to you that a team member did not perform as much as he should and failed, then according to the rules, instead of admonition, we talk with such person 1: 1. and check what went wrong and why, instead of showing our dissatisfaction. We need to show tips for the future and ask about the lessons learned. Constructive feedback is critical here.

7. Manager

Yes, It is no surprise that the team leader has a significant impact on his team's effectiveness.

Experienced manager:

• He knows what to do not to tire the team on a challenging project.
• Anticipate emerging problems and react before you have to put out the fire.
• He will address the problems of the project, and will correctly match the team to the given project.
• Coordinate the project's business activities with team activities to solve potential problems before they occur.
• He will take care of motivation, integration, and most importantly, team communication.
• He will address emerging problems instead of avoiding them, hoping that the team will deal with them on their own.
• When a problem occurs in a team, it will solve it instead of duplicating.

It's no secret that the effectiveness of the entire team, depending on the manager can vary by 200% or more. So the same team doing the same project can be 2x more effective (or 2x less effective) depending on who manages it.

It must be remembered that the use of the elements described above requires a certain amount of time. However, this time is more than paid back. Creating spaces for our team can be compared to creating a highway for cars (our developers). On the right track, you can develop high speeds and race against others. If the road is narrow and bumpy, we'll enjoy getting to our destination.