Dear Friends,
There is a famous saying 'Teams of ordinary people achieve extraordinary results'. This saying holds true in achieving the results always, especially, when it comes to managing big teams. The first and the foremost strength of the team is communication. If communication breaks, then, things start falling apart. From disrupted client deliverable, to the bad rapport amongst the team-members. Even the biggest of the space missions fail would at certain points, when people stop talking.
Few key points in handling big teams
There might be number of challenges in handling the teams, when they are operative in 24 X 7 kind of model, but, everything is achievable if some thinking is put into it. Here are few corrective and constructive measures to be applied.
Meetings: Daily meetings must be organized to sum-up the day's activities which were handled by different shifts. What-went-well and what-went-wrong should be discussed in depth. But care should be taken that the meetings should not eat a productive part of the day. People have best energy during the morning hours or start of the shift.
Hand-Overs: Shift hand-overs should be properly done. The progress can be shared with the entire team via emails. PMs and Leads should define a process of the shift-hand over. Well-defined shift-handover emails / progress emails should be shared by the shift leads with entire team. A properly delegated task works wonders in achieving the desired results.
Technical Leadership: Team should be built strategically with correct number of technical leadership to support appropriately, in times of distress. Improper leadership can deface the name of an organization easily.
Resource Planning: Resources should be hand-picked, so that head-count be divided wisely across all the shifts, without impacting the resource availability and work. Resources with versatile skills should be equally distributed. It's advisable to divide the team in small groups for better output.
Skill Planning/Productivity Check: It's advisable to get monthly skill check done for all the candidates working in the team. This ensures that team is well equipped based on the need of the hour, changing technologies, client commitments and expectations.
Project Management Activities: A PM carries the responsibility on the shoulders to build the team, maintain CMMI accreditation of the project etc. Quality assurance, resource planning, escalations are to be handled by the PM.
Small Steps Towards Milestone: There should be realistic and achievable milestones. Check-points for milestones, play an important role in keeping the things moving. This also ensures that motivation level of the team is up and doesn't fall apart. Client should be aware of the check-points and should be in agreement with the same. They should be kept informed in a timely basis.
Communication and proper planning is the key factor for better team management. Even "Impossible" says "I-M-POSSIBLE". Most impossible tasks will become possible if proper steps are taken. Hope this article helped you plan your teams better. Let us know in the comments .