Five Ways to Build Great Work Teams
Building
a great work team can seem daunting. How do you take a diverse group of
employees and turn them into an efficient, innovative, and effective
team? The ultimate goal is to create a group that follows the agile
system development technique, which can be applied to many different
industries. The colloquial term for the process is stormin’, formin’,
norman’, and performin’. A more technical explanation of the system is
that it is created by small group dynamics which allow a self-regulating
team to define, motivate, and manage themselves. Here are five steps to
help build a team that can achieve that goal:
1. Mix personalities and skills- Do not assign
five identical people to the same team. The more you can mix it up
the better. Try to create diversity in age, experience, background,
and education to have a well-rounded team. Each worker will be able
to provide a new perspective and set of skills that the rest of the
team may not possess.
2. Give them a clear goal- It is a group of
people; which means if they do not have a clear goal, they will
pontificate ad nauseum. Assign a task, give them some set
parameters, and make sure that they have a clear understanding of
what the end goal is.
3. Let them figure out how to get there- This
is known as the stormin’ part of the process. There may be some
arguments and this step can take longer than some of the others, but
the team will come out on the other side of the discussion with a
creative way to achieve the goal that utilizes their individual
strengths.
4. Time block their work- Make it a realistic
period, but a little challenging. This is another part of the Agile
technique: break into short components to allow short bursts of
energy that will lead to more progress than one long stretch of
time. The idea is to have the team break the work down into
sections, so their energy can be focused on one part at a time. This
will mean every step of the process is given equal attention and
that the team can reevaluate what they need to do each step of the
way.
5. Unless there is a strong personality
conflict try keep the team together through multiple projects. With
every project they work on together, they will continue to improve
as a team. They will become in tune with how their coworkers go
about their task and will set up stronger lines of communication.
With these few steps, a company can take a group of
employees and turn them into a strong and united work team that can
produce great results.
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