In order to ensure that a team is productive and efficient, a project manager needs to be able to improve the efficiency of the way in which a team works together. Great collaboration is what will make your team successful. Unfortunately putting effective collaborations in place for your team may not be as easy as you think. People are different and the way in which they work and therefore respond to different methods will not be the same.
Here are just 3 methods of collaboration that could help to inspire your team to bigger and better things. Which method would suit your team best?
Team building
Whilst your immediate thought to team building might be to groan don’t dismiss it out of hand. One thing that you should have learned during project management training is that in order for your team to collaborate effectively they need to know each other, and team building is a really good way of making this happen. There are plenty of different companies that run team building activities so look for something a little different, something that is perhaps more creative and would work better for the team members that you do have. The main purpose of any team building is, of course, to help your team learn about each other, work out each other’s strengths and weaknesses and learn to work as a team.
Rewards and positivity
The majority of people respond well to positive comments, and those that don’t are certainly motivated by the idea of being rewarded. People like to be noticed and rewarded in some way for the efforts that they have made in going above and beyond in their role. Rewarding your team does not have to be something that costs a lot. There are plenty of ways in which you could reward your staff without having to pay out for any physical rewards.
This may be as simple as noticing excellent work, or even work that has been completed well and before a deadline, and if this notice comes from the person in charge of the project then that is better still.
Rewards are a really good way of saying thank you for your efforts and making sure that a team member knows that their efforts have not gone unnoticed. Sometimes it is the little things that you can do that can really yield the best results.
Failure shouldn’t be punished
Project management as you will learn during any project management courses you attend, is a complex field. Whilst you may start out with a schedule of work and a timescale it really doesn’t take too much to throw that out of the window. When a failure occurs, it is rarely the work of just one person but rather the collective result of a number of different things. Nobody likes to be judged and in reality, punishing where you see failure is not helpful, instead use the failure to see what went wrong and to look for a solution. This will help you to maintain positivity within your team and inspire them to strive for a solution.
