Keeping aligned with one of our regular themes here at the Teams365 blog – Teams on Thursday – I wanted to plant the seed for four separate activities you might consider incorporating into your 2023 team meetings this year. These come from an earlier post on 10 things to do with your teams and I’ve picked out three of my favorite. Consider these:
Area #1 – Mapping out key work flows – Many teams today, especially virtual teams, don’t have a good sense of how work fits together. This is an important area to explore at the macro-level with remote and virtual teams, given the “domino effect” that can happen across a team when one person does not complete work on time, or as planned.
As a team you will want to consider key activities projects you have until the end of the year. One at a time, map out the key tasks of the project or activity. What’s the sequencing? Who is responsible for what? What needs to happen before the next person can start, or complete, the work?
As you map this out - and it can literally be a mapping on a white board or white screen, or a set of post-it notes – identify
Area #2 – Role Clarity
Going hand in hand with work flows, and what people are doing, is clarifying with team members their roles. This is often one of the areas teams struggle with the most. It is common for roles to be undefined, duplicative, and gaps may exist.
In clarifying roles, you may want to consider these types of questions:
Area #3 – Making Decisions:
Team members and leaders face decisions every day.
A 2015 article indicates that we make 35,000 decisions a day, including 227 on food alone. Read it here.
Helping team members make better decisions is critical for team alignment and success.
Across the span of a day, we may be making decisions around resourcing, priorities, relationships, and what gets our attention.
What are the tools and processes you want to build skills in with your team? Consider the Decision Matrix. Steven Covey’s Urgent/Important matrix is probably one of the most familiar, and popular ones that exist. There are many others so do some research around tools you can bring in to help team members make better decisions.
Check out this article from Concordia University on the 7 Steps of the Decision Making Process, which also includes a focus on some of the challenges we can have with decision making. Read it here.
Enjoy the reflection with your team!
Jennifer
Area #1 – Mapping out key work flows – Many teams today, especially virtual teams, don’t have a good sense of how work fits together. This is an important area to explore at the macro-level with remote and virtual teams, given the “domino effect” that can happen across a team when one person does not complete work on time, or as planned.
As a team you will want to consider key activities projects you have until the end of the year. One at a time, map out the key tasks of the project or activity. What’s the sequencing? Who is responsible for what? What needs to happen before the next person can start, or complete, the work?
As you map this out - and it can literally be a mapping on a white board or white screen, or a set of post-it notes – identify
Area #2 – Role Clarity
Going hand in hand with work flows, and what people are doing, is clarifying with team members their roles. This is often one of the areas teams struggle with the most. It is common for roles to be undefined, duplicative, and gaps may exist.
In clarifying roles, you may want to consider these types of questions:
- Who does what on the team?
- Where is there overlap?
- Where is there a gap?
- What are the areas which are not being covered?
- Is everyone in the right role (i.e. are people’s strengths being leveraged? Consider who is good at getting things done vs. planning, starting things vs. wrapping them up)
Area #3 – Making Decisions:
Team members and leaders face decisions every day.
A 2015 article indicates that we make 35,000 decisions a day, including 227 on food alone. Read it here.
Helping team members make better decisions is critical for team alignment and success.
Across the span of a day, we may be making decisions around resourcing, priorities, relationships, and what gets our attention.
What are the tools and processes you want to build skills in with your team? Consider the Decision Matrix. Steven Covey’s Urgent/Important matrix is probably one of the most familiar, and popular ones that exist. There are many others so do some research around tools you can bring in to help team members make better decisions.
Check out this article from Concordia University on the 7 Steps of the Decision Making Process, which also includes a focus on some of the challenges we can have with decision making. Read it here.
Enjoy the reflection with your team!
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized |Reconnecting Workspaces | Group Coaching Essentials
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Instagram @ReconnectingWorkspaces
Phone: (416)996-8326
Check out my TEDx talk
Looking to bring your workplaces back together, whether you are remote, hybrid, or face-to-face? Pick up a copy of my new book, Reconnecting Workspaces, at Amazon.
Potentials Realized |Reconnecting Workspaces | Group Coaching Essentials
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Instagram @ReconnectingWorkspaces
Phone: (416)996-8326
Check out my TEDx talk
Looking to bring your workplaces back together, whether you are remote, hybrid, or face-to-face? Pick up a copy of my new book, Reconnecting Workspaces, at Amazon.
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