How to Build Highly Functional AGILE Teams
A while back I read this somewhere:
TEAM “A” + IDEA “A” => DEFINITE SUCCESS
TEAM “A” + IDEA “B” => SUCCESS
TEAM “B” + IDEA “A” => MEDIOCRE SUCCESS OR FAILURE
TEAM “B” + IDEA “B” => DEFINITE FAILURE
Keep the team interested
An American Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi produced this graph which explains why people get bored or demotivated and where you want your team members to be.
To ensure you have a highly motivated team and also low attrition rates you want to keep your team interested. So actively pursuing this is critical to team’s success.
Select the right people
Selecting right people or people with the right attitude is one of the most important factors in making any team successful. While we all need ace players in our teams, we also need people with good temperament. If you have an ace player who likes to take credit all the time, it will not help in building the team morale. So while it is important to get the best people, it is equally important to get people with great attitude who can share a bit of their success with others.
It is a fact that not all your team members will be highly performant. Your team members would work on different tasks depending on their skillset. So it is very likely that some may be more valued than others and may be in the lime light, which is ok. But we all know that a lot of the grunt-work that goes in the background with less skilled team members should not go unnoticed and needs to be appreciated enough.
Spending time on getting the right people is absolutely essential.
Build trust
Building trust should come top down and is vital. Pairing people to work together and mixing and churning can help in team members building a rapport between themselves. Clearly, if some members are uncomfortable with it all the time, you could still allow limited forced interaction so team members get to work with each other and appreciate each other.
The rapport between team members should be at a level where they can be critical without sounding offensive.
Remove blame culture
Avoid this at all costs. Blame culture is the root of all evil in some of the very bad teams I have worked in. The amount of damage it does to relations and the work environment is catastrophic. Who would want to go to work in a place full of negativity?
Add some fun
Build enough trust, such that the team can have a laugh together. Self deprecation from a team lead helps lighten up the mood in the team. It is very effective and lets team members relax a little and get their guards down.
Also why would you want to spend most of the day at a place which seems miserable. So take it easy.
Go for drinks
Make sure you do this or any other social stuff you can do once in a while. It gives an opportunity to interact in a non official setting. It helps team members understand what motivates others and explore common interests outside of work.
Make newbies feel safe
I have worked with a lot of fresh graduates. I love the energy they bring to the team. Some of them are exceptionally bright. Since they lack experience they can feel very unsafe. Some teams are not that great at integrating newcomers and make new team members uncomfortable. So making sure new members are well supported is very important. They can be great future asset to the team.
Cover for others
Find out proactively if anyone is facing issues and ensure they are covered. Make sure they have enough back up to achieve their tasks. Back your team members and they will back you too.
Always shout-out for any thing positive
Acknowledging someone for good work is a great motivator and as cheap as anything can get with great value. Surprisingly managers and leads don’t use a few words of encouragement to their own team’s advantage. Not that you want to be fake about appreciating anyone. But if you cannot appreciate good work within your team and there is no gratitude for your team members then it is time to introspect.
I have at times called out some other teams and people from those teams have come forward and thanked me acknowledging their achievements. This shows that people value being appreciated, even just a few words.
Golden Boots Awards
This is a great way to make the most effective team members feel appreciated. One of the places I used to work had a monthly award given to the most nominated person across teams, who went above and beyond to solve problems that had a big impact. It may be just a recognition like a name on a wall but it goes a long way.
Finally a great African saying:
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together.
Hope you are inspired by this to build the very best of teams. All the best!
