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How Has Project Management Evolved Over Time?

How has project management evolved over time

Most sources claim that project management was “invented” in the mid-20th century, when Gantt charts were popularized and concepts like cost prediction and project scheduling were created.

But history is filled with endless examples of project management brilliance. What is true is that, until around 1950, project management-specific techniques and tools had never been used. Fast forward to today and project management is almost unrecognizable from just 1-2 decades ago. Its evolution has been rapid and transformative for virtually every industry in every nation on Earth.

In this article we’re going to examine that evolution, from the earliest examples of project management through to today and beyond.

The history of project management

The history of project management

For most of history, it’s been the master tradesmen and architects who have personally overseen the construction of their work. From Hemiunu (Great Pyramid of Giza architect) to Isambard Kingdom Brunel (one of history’s great and prolific engineering geniuses) these masters wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving the implementation of their designs to anyone else.

The simplest definition of a project is any effort to produce a unique result with due care to quality, time limits and budget. The Egyptian pyramids were built to very specific dimensions using then-groundbreaking techniques, funded by taxing the people, and built to quickly honor the royal dead—though it satisfies the 3 criteria, most historians don’t credit this as true project management.

So let’s jump ahead to the 1950s when the foundations of modern project management were laid.

1950s and 60s

This was where the modern project manager was born: a role of which the sole purpose was the optimization of project delivery, by using groundbreaking project management techniques and tools. The earliest such tools were the Critical Path Method (CPM) and PERT—the Program Evaluation and Review Technique:

  • CPM—Developed by Morgan Walker of Dupont and James Kelley Jr of Remington Rand, this was essentially an algorithm (the first of its kind) to optimally schedule any set of project activities.
  • PERT—Developed during the Polaris missile mission (during the cold war) PERT was a decision-making tool that considered 3 variables (time, resources and technical performance specs) in order to find the fastest possible way to achieve project objectives.

At a similar time, headway was made in complementary areas such as cost estimation and management, engineering economics and many others. As a result, the 50s and 60s laid the foundations for a new era of technological growth.

The 70s

Throughout the 1970s, project management continued to evolve. Let’s highlight two particularly prominent progressions:

  • Project management software—This was the decade where Bill Gates launched Microsoft and computers first became affordable for medium-sized companies. It also saw the launch of the world’s first project management software companies (offering relational database management systems) of which the most prominent were Artemis, Oracle and Scitor.
  • Material requirements planning—Another shift in thinking for manufacturing during the 60s and 70s was the invention of MRP, created in order to optimize manufacturing processes. The basic tenets were:
    • Ensure materials are available for production
    • Maintain lowest possible levels of materials
    • Plan manufacturing, delivery and purchasing activities

This was revolutionary since all industries had previously relied on simpler systems of ordering new materials when they ran out (Reorder Point methods) or ordering the amount of materials that most significantly reduced holding and ordering costs (Economic Purchase Quantity).

The 80s and 90s

By the early 90s, the entire landscape of project management had been transformed. Computers now dominated project scheduling and management for nearly all large and medium-sized companies. Monumental projects continued to be completed faster and better than thought possible, while setbacks—for example the tragedy of the Challenger space shuttle—spurred the advancement of risk management and quality management to new heights.

It was around this time that the concept of a project management methodology was invented. The Scrum methodology (which remains immensely popular to this day) was introduced by Jeff Sutherland in 1993. Agile (perhaps the most famous methodology) was first introduced slightly later in 2001.

These methodologies described new approaches to organizing and completing project activities, which gave teams a framework for even faster iteration and development of outcomes.

The 2000s

The advent of the internet changed everything once again. The power of personal computing and data management became stratospheric: data could now be shared with anyone, anywhere, at any time. It has of course facilitated global projects, but modern cloud-based management tools were also transformative for domestic and local projects.

What project management looks like today

What project management looks like today

If we were to take a project manager from the 70s or 80s and plop them into a modern PM role, they would be nothing short of astounded at what it demanded of them. Even though project management was instrumental in feats like the moon landings, the job was entirely focused on optimizing the process. The greater strategic goals and context of the project were managed by higher-ups, and the project manager role was about getting your head down and being a first-class technical performer.

Today, the duties of a high-performing project manager are significantly broader. We’re going to look at the 3 areas we’ve identified as being the most groundbreaking:

  • The importance of people management
  • The challenges of managing remote teams
  • The requirement of becoming a strategic partner

These principles are becoming cornerstones of “new age” project management.

Increased focus on people management

Increased focus on people management

As the trend for empowering employees and prioritizing wellbeing has continued to climb, so too has the remit of project management widened. It is no longer a purely process role: as well as overseeing project deliverables, managers are now required to develop the personal skills and soft attributes of employees, cultivate fulfillment in their roles, and be an empathetic ear to complaints, troubles and problems.

The reason? Well, there’s a few. On the one hand, we can talk all day about the vital importance of tools, techniques, projections and scheduling. But if you don’t prioritize the humans in your team, your project will always fall below its potential. This is a relatively new way of thinking, but employees are less willing than ever to tolerate unfair treatment, abuse, or apathy—if your company doesn’t offer them what they need, they’ll find a competitor that will.

People are now considered more crucial to the success of projects than ever before—if you lose them, you derail the project.

Soft skills are becoming essential

Our increasingly more collaborative work environments—with less focus on strictly top-down management—means the value placed on soft skills is through the roof.

Unfortunately, most managerial promotions (including those of project managers) come off the back of technical performance. For example, a tax accountant smashes it out the park for 2 years and gets rewarded with a promotion to project manager—but has she actually demonstrated any managerial expertise?

This can be problematic. However, things are tracking in the right direction. Companies are beginning to prioritize soft skills like communication, empathy and motivation when promoting candidates. Those are traits you can’t easily teach, if at all. Those with well-developed social and soft skills are naturally better disposed to person management.

This is a hugely challenging balancing act for companies. Do you focus on building a happy and engaged workforce (even if projects are run less smoothly and incur greater costs?) or hire a brilliant technical project manager and risk alienating team members?

The unique challenge of managing virtual teams

The unique challenge of managing virtual teams

The complexities of managing global teams, while still relatively new, have been largely figured out. Businesses and nations have been operating global trades for a couple of centuries, one way or another, and the internet era has generally made this job easier. Project management has adapted: the rise of online tools like Teamly—designed for project scheduling, task management, communication etc—is a direct response to digital globalization.

When remote work first entered the mainstream in response to the global lockdowns of early 2020, it was a safeguard; an emergency placeholder before things went back to normal. Now, nearly 2 years on, remote work (either full or hybrid) has become the expectation for a majority of workers.

And for project managers, remote work can be a headache.

First, there’s communication. If your team is spread across different locations and your contact is fully (or even partially) remote, that presents complications—nevermind contrasting time zones or language barriers. As project manager, you need to put in more work to ensure communication is effective and streamlined, or else risk a buildup of frustration, stress, conflicts, and delays.

Nurturing relationships within the team is especially hard without personal contact time or social events. Virtual team members can also suffer from a lack of focus and poor productivity. Since resource allocation is a vital aspect of project management, there can be a tendency for projects to overrun.

None of these obstacles are insurmountable, but they do highlight the marked changes in the project management remit, even in just a few years.

Becoming a strategic partner

Perhaps the most fascinating shift for project managers is that they are now regularly contributing on a more strategic, directional level.

Project managers directly benefit from understanding how their project aligns with the company’s overall strategic goals and vision. Without this understanding, it’s much harder to deliver concretely effective outcomes. Familiarity with concepts like the triple bottom line (i.e. the social, ecological and economical outcomes of the project) allow PMs to use their expertise to reshape projects for greater success.

Once again, this is radically different to project management as recent as a few years ago. Job descriptions that were built around hard skills like scheduling and holding the team accountable have been superseded by “understanding the bigger picture” and “thinking outside the box”. There is an expectation of questioning assumptions, challenging status quos, identifying and prioritizing risks more effectively, and generally employing a more strategic approach.

Project managers have historically been doers—they worked hard to make sure everything worked as smoothly as possible to deliver whatever the higher-ups asked for. Now, more and more project managers are taking seats at the thinkers table, and it’s a serious gear change in responsibility.

Project management keeps getting more powerful

Project management keeps getting more powerful

As our projects become exponentially more ambitious, so project management tools & techniques become exponentially more valuable. The intersection of totally diverse fields, languages, cultures, ambitions, abilities and much more means that the old model—master directs worker—is simply impossible.

Over a 20 year period, Americans and Soviets overcame an incomprehensible number of obstacles in their desperate attempt to become the winners of the Space Race. With all the resources in the world, this would have been laughably futile without project management and its associated techniques.

The insane rate of innovation we witnessed during this period has continued to accelerate well into the 21st century. Globalization and the internet have made virtually all projects more competitive than could have been imagined during most of human history.

When ancient Egypt’s master architects were building pyramids, there was never a young upstart looking to build better, sleeker pyramids on a more aggressive budget. Not so in today’s industries.

Project management has become one of the keys to running a successful business. CPM and PERT were ground-breaking and have led to the establishment of various successful project management methodologies in use today, as well as the myriad software tools which make them practicable.

Future of project management

What does the future of project management have in store?

For many, the ideal project manager should be unburdened from the responsibility of managing and motivating staff and being a strategic partner. They would rather see this as a more technical, process-oriented role. In order to achieve that, some companies are now investing in separate roles: the project manager and the people manager.

Personal and professional development of employees is for the people manager; the project undertaking and its various arms and legs are for the project manager.

This is a fascinating development because it adds a new layer of complexity to projects. It also requires more budget per project (because of the second manager) but also introduces a novel dynamic, with the potential for teams to have two separate managers. It goes without saying that this is only really employed at the large, multinational level—but who knows how this might change in the coming years.

Other futurists are considering possibilities like “hybrid project management” (where project management methodologies are combined) as well as the inevitable impact of groundbreaking new technologies.

However, the only thing we can say for sure is that the role of project management will change, probably faster and more dramatically than anyone is currently predicting.

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In a Tangle? How to Be the Solution, Not the Problem

Be Part of the Solution, Not the Problem

Do you have those friends who can’t seem to go anywhere without complaining? They’re aghast by the sauciness of a waitress, the carelessness of a driver, the incompetence of the lady at the salon. And they’re always receiving freebies and coupons on account of the treatment they’ve had to endure.

But let’s be honest. It isn’t hard for any of us to spot problems everywhere we go. Maybe this store is too expensive, that friend always shows up late (and never picks up the tab), this client can’t ever seem to make up his mind, and so projects get delayed.

When we become fixated on all these problems, they swirl into a cyclone of chronic dissatisfaction.

And then we become the real problem.

It’s tempting to wish for an elixir that would make all of these problems vanish into thin air: poof!

But better than fantasizing about something that won’t happen, what if you could actually be a solver of problems, a can-do, let’s-get-this-done kind of a person?

Sometimes, making this switch is all about where you position yourself.

Let’s look at eight ways to be a part of the solution, not the problem.

Make a Conscious Shift

1. Make a Conscious Shift

The last time you chatted with a friend, what did the two of you talk about? Chances are, a lot of the conversation was consumed with problems.

Thinking, venting, and obsessing about a problem is pretty easy.

Let’s say you hate your job. From the first moment you wake up in the morning, you’re thinking about how much you dislike the commute, the break room, your boss, your coworkers.

This is to say, when we have a problem, our default state is to accept and gripe about it. The problem is front and center of our mind.

Effecting a solution requires deliberately shifting our energy. It means changing the conversation from: “I hate my job” to “I need a new job.”

Everything that follows from making this shift is hard work. It means updating a resume, networking, and possibly developing new skills.

In sum, being part of the problem is a passive stance. Making an about-face shift to being part of the solution requires a conscious, deliberate effort.

Reframe it

2. Reframe it

Every project has its share of hangups. Sometimes it’s due to something completely out of your control–maybe the plans were never completed, or a client keeps changing her mind.

It’s easy to react to these obstacles with thoughts like: “Can’t they get it together?” and “Why do I get stuck with these incompetent people?”

Although there may be some truth to these statements, an accusatory and victim mindset doesn’t help you or the situation.

Being part of the solution entails taking a different approach.
When you face a problem squarely and work through it, the client notices.

They recognize your ability to cut through red tape, overcome obstacles, and you become their preferred provider.

They’re also sure to boast about you to friends and family.

It’s not Pollyanna optimism to say that a snafu really is a great opportunity. When you are seen as a “solver of problems,” you garner devoted clients and a sterling reputation.

Meet to Solve, Not to Gush

3. Meet to Solve, Not to Gush

Sometimes, when people show up at a meeting, all they have to talk about is “this person who did this, and that person who did that, and this thing that is broken.”

If everyone’s simply airing grievances, however, it’s not really a meeting but more of a venting session.

A meeting is about engaging, listening to various perspectives, then working together to make things happen.

Being a part of the solution during a meeting means not only presenting a problem, but then taking the next step and identifying how to fix it.

“The sink is broken, let’s call the plumber tomorrow and get that fixed.”

When problems are presented in a solution-oriented framework, things start to happen. Organizations reach quarterly goals, collaboration increases, and clients are happy.

Interrogate Yourself

4. Interrogate Yourself

Have you ever lost something at your desk, like a pen or stapler, and your first thought is that a coworker must have taken it? Then after aggravating for an hour or so, you find it hidden beneath a stack of papers.

It’s really hard to acknowledge faults in ourselves and take accountability for things. That’s why when a problem arises, often our first instinct is to look outward and blame someone else.

But let’s be honest–every one of us is still a work-in-process.

In order to be a solver of problems, it’s important to pay close attention to the narrative we tell ourselves.

Making an accurate assessment of an issue means asking: “What role do I play in this problem? How might I have brought it about, and what can I do to fix it?”

Being a part of the solution means accepting responsibility. Once we’ve identified our own role, we’re better prepared to approach others and work constructively to find a solution.

Look Down the Pike

5. Look Down the Pike

When driving, most of us keep our eyes on the car in front of us, and everything in our immediate vicinity.

If we make a practice of looking a mile or so ahead, however, it’s possible to spot obstacles like traffic jams, and make quick detours before they become a problem.

When working on a project, or anything in life really, it’s helpful to think a few steps ahead and consider where things are going.

Take a kitchen remodel. If the owner vacillates over whether to purchase a marble or tile countertop, it could really affect other parts of the project, such as the installation of the refrigerator and stove.

Identifying this obstacle to the client ahead of time allows you to make a detour before you encounter the traffic jam.

You don’t usually get credit for solving a problem that never happened. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set about solving them anyway!

6. Practice Gratitude

Let’s face it, some days are a lot more challenging than others.

Maybe you have a fender bender on the way to work, assuage an angry client during the first hour in the office, then try to run a meeting without any critical spreadsheets, because a coworker forgot to bring them.

After a morning like this, it’s easy to put a “do not disturb” sign on the door, and sulk through the rest of the day.

However, getting completely wrapped up in discontent and overwhelm makes us blind to what is going right. Maybe we’re lucky to have this client, and a team that consistently produces really great work.

Making a practice of being grateful keeps us from getting bogged down in everyday difficulties. Wel have plenty in our lives that is going right–and it’s important we tell this to ourselves, daily.

Change the Perspective

7. Change the Perspective

Some problems are especially tricky to solve, and don’t have a clear solution. In these instances, it’s easy to be complacent and just stay stuck.

Say you have a really hard time getting to sleep. Even after trying all the obvious solutions like turning off the lights and buying a good mattress, you’re still tossing and turning all night long.

Being a problem-solver means not settling after doing the initial groundwork. Some problems require an exploratory mindset.

Improving sleep may require taking an aerial view of the situation. By looking into all sorts of things, such as what you’re eating, how much you exercise and what kind of stresses you face, it’s possible to arrive at a solution.

A determined mindset is its own reward. Although you won’t find solutions right away, a habit of knocking and knocking gets you to the other side.

8. Listen for Feedback

Lots of problems we face nowadays are pretty complex. When we approach them exclusively from our own vantage, it means we have some serious blind spots.

By actively listening to others, and soliciting feedback, we gain greater perspective and clarity on a situation.

Take a simple problem like the office copy machine not working. All on our own, we may assume that it’s just out of ink. However, by asking around the office, we may find that it’s more complicated than that, and a repairman needs to be called.

Being part of the solution means not exclusively listening to the voices in our head. It’s about developing breadth and bringing other people’s input into the solution.

Be the Change

Be the Change

Whether we’re with friends, family, or at work, we choose the role we play. We can be the one who’s requesting help or the one who’s providing it, the one who’s talking or the one who’s listening, the one who presents a problem, or the one who presents a solution.

Whether we’re struggling with sleep, weight, lead generation, or a complicated project, it’s much easier to stay focused on the problem, and a lot harder to focus on the solution.

Although you’ll probably never find the elixir that makes problems go away, being a part of the solution has magical rewards of its own: goals are achieved, people appreciate you, and your social capital increases.

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Baseline Budget Development for Project Management

Baseline budget in project management

Project managers need to prepare a baseline budget for approval early on during the process. It’s an essential document that helps monitor projected and actual costs incurred during a project. Due to the focus on money, creating a baseline budget can be a daunting task but they are a great reference point at every stage of the project development.

In order to create a baseline budget in project management, managers should look at current spending levels to inform the document. They are a time-phased plan and although it can be hard to anticipate all costs early on, the budget can be redrawn when there is a change of scope.

If you’re undertaking a new project or looking to re-baseline your project, then this article is for you. We’re going to go over the importance of a baseline budget in project management and how to create one.

What is Baseline Budget

What Is a Baseline Budget?

In project management, baseline budgets are projections for direct and indirect costs. A budget will include reference points that can be used in performance analysis. As the project manager, you will be able to refer to the budget concerning short-term and long-term objectives.

One of the benefits of a baseline budget from an executive point of view is that it can help to prevent projects from going over budget. Although the actual costs may differ from the projections, a baseline budget can help costs from spiraling out of control.

During the early stages of planning a project, project managers should start putting together the baseline budget. Details that should be included in a budget are cash flow, overheads, cost breakdown, unit price analyses, staff, and contractor budget.

Creating one early can help the team to identify risks that could happen, the scope of work, indirect costs associated with the project, and the project duration. This information can help to inform your team as well as provide a timeline to the people you report to.

Here are some of the things that should be included in the baseline budget. Not all projects will incur the same costs but these are some of the most common costs:

Direct costs

These are variable costs that are directly linked to production.

  • Labor costs
  • Material costs
  • Rent
  • Machinery costs
  • Wages

Indirect costs

Indirect costs are fixed costs that occur as general business expenses.

  • Insurance & Depreciation
  • Running costs
  • Admin & Security
  • Additional overheads
  • General & Stationery supplies

Importance of a Baseline Budget

It’s an early challenge that is essential for project managers to tackle. Estimations need to be made properly to help establish clear targets and milestones. Not only can this be used by the team but is useful for other stakeholders such as company executives. The baseline can be used to justify budget requests for approval.

A budget needs to be created early in a project’s life cycle or when there is a change in scope. Time and costs are two essential parts of every project and they need to be well documented.

This way they can provide estimates of durations, spending, and revenue which is helpful for project performance measurement. You will also be able to include a breakdown of contractor costs of the deliverables as well as indirect costs.

Calculate all the costs separately to make the baseline budget clearer. Including proper detail level is an essential ingredient to making a great budget. Help yourself by calculating the costs of tasks and goods individually. This includes creating details for all materials used for each separate task.

Estimations made in the budget need to be clear and well defined otherwise it can make it harder to track and reach targets. When a baseline budget is rich in detail it becomes a really useful document to refer back to as the project progresses.

Tracking the budget

Tracking the Budget

Once you have crafted the baseline budget it will be time to get the plans approved. After the project and budget are given the go-ahead you will enter the next phase of tracking the budget.

Now the baseline budget is compiled with estimates and projected costs it can be used to monitor against the actual costs incurred. It’s useful for keeping the project on track and avoiding the development from exceeding the budget.

Break the budget down even further to account for the different phases and locations of a project. As phases conclude you’ll have a clear idea of how the actual costs are stacking up against projections and whether things are on target or not. If at any point you are coming in over or under budget, adjustments can be made if possible.

It is good practice for project managers to refer back to the baseline budget to understand the schedule and cost performance for the project. This can help to identify if there are any issues with the current budget and may inform when you should initiate a re-baseline.

Making Changes to the Baseline Budget

Making Changes to the Baseline Budget

The main reason for making changes to the baseline budget in project management is if there has been a change in scope. Otherwise, there usually won’t be a need to re-baseline unless there has been a call from management to initiate one. This could be due to a company-wide review of current spending.

Change in scope can happen during the development of a project when the client changes the requirements or deliverables. There may also be technical reasons that bring about the need for a re-baseline.

Once there has been a need to change the baseline budget the costs should be reevaluated to consider any changes in project conditions. The budget may need to be increased or reduced depending on the results of the re-baseline.

It’s common for new costs to be incurred during the development phase when unexpected events occur such as sickness within the team. Here are some of the reasons you may need to request an increase in the budget:

  • Increased contractor fees
  • Extra materials
  • Sickness pay
  • Additional staff costs
  • New equipment being brought in

Your company or client may ask for a re-baseline with the purpose of reducing the costs associated with development. There may be an opportunity to reevaluate the budget if the project has progressed smoother than expected.

Sometimes it may be necessary to redistribute staffing resources which can affect the cost and timeline for a project. It is not uncommon for tasks within projects to be over or underestimated. During the developmental phase of the project, this may become clear and warrant a change in scope.

Conclusion

Creating a baseline budget is an early task for project managers but one that is essential to do well. As an approved plan it is important to include as much detail as possible to satisfy the stakeholders and management. The level of detail included should match the scope of the project and estimates should be as precise as possible.

Usually, the budget is based on current spending levels and this can be subject to change depending on company performance and resources. Re-baselining the budget during the development of a project can be stressful especially when dealing with reductions.

However, creating a detailed report early in the project can continue to help the team during the life cycle of development. All possible direct and indirect costs should be considered and included. This will help to ensure the project stays on budget and progresses smoothly.

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Barriers to Watch Out for in Project Management

Managing projects is complicated—managing them well is even harder.

Despite all the training, resources, tools, and methodologies available to PMs today, there is a wide array of challenges that they face on a regular basis. An HBR study suggests that nearly 20% of all projects end up costing over two times their estimated amount, and almost three-quarters of tech projects are delivered with significant delays.

The problems that cause spiraling budgets and missed deadlines can stem from a spectrum of different areas, ranging from the project manager’s ability to plan and communicate to corporate culture and beyond.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the most common barriers project managers have to address and, more importantly, explore how they can confidently overcome them.

Let’s dive right in.

Not keeping teams on the same page

Not keeping teams on the same page

A significant part of project management revolves around creating a shared sense of context for lots of people, ranging from stakeholders to team members—and while it doesn’t sound like the most technical and complicated task out there, it can be extremely challenging.

Failing to do that can often result in disorientation and lack of transparency in a project. Keeping your team on the same page will ensure that everyone understands what they’re working towards, what they need to do, and the project should be navigated.

Here are a few recommendations to help you keep everyone in sync:

  • Make sure that everybody has a strong grasp of the project’s goals and priorities.
  • Secure buy-in from all essential shareholders.
  • Make high work standards the norm and focus on keeping that bar high throughout the project.

To some, these measures may appear fairly self-evident, but research suggests that up to 40% of projects fail because of a lack of clarity and a well-defined project plan.

Similarly, it’s crucial to establish a well-thought-out way of quantifying a team’s achievements once you’ve defined a project’s central goals. Not only does this provide everyone with a better grasp of their individual and the team’s performance, but it also acts as a solid reporting tool for project managers when communicating performance to upper management.

A very simple yet efficient way of ensuring that your goals are both useful and usable is following the SMART mnemonic— your goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Yes, this is a very basic and widespread framework for goal setting, but it seems like managers all over the world seem to disregard it on a regular basis.

Not analyzing skills and competencies

Not analyzing skills and competencies

To ensure that a project will be delivered successfully and on time, it’s essential to thoroughly assess the team’s skills and competencies.

A PM’s responsibilities revolve around creating the right environment for a project to be executed well and a critical part of this task is to ensure that everyone on the team you’re working with has the necessary knowledge to do so. Failing to do so will invariably result in cascading delays, unsatisfactory work, and a host of other issues.

Before starting to work on a project, it’s vital to understand whether you’ll require additional people on board to complete the project within its allotted time frame.

If you’re looking to go the extra mile, it’s worth looking into the culture of the organization and the team itself. Often, the reason for project failure is a team’s immunity to change, along with a toxic or negative work environment. To counteract this, PMs should look into running team-building activities to strengthen the working relationship between people, underline the most pressing issues, and ensure proper goal alignment.

Being unprepared for scope creep

Being unprepared for scope creep

Change is an immutable part of life and business, for that matter. Most projects will require a slight course correction or scope reassessment at some point—and that’s totally fine. However, a critical part of a PM’s professional growth is learning to manage these moments efficiently, in order to prevent ballooning budgets, dwindling team spirit, and missing even the most reasonable deadlines.

Basically, scope creep is what happens when changes are introduced to a project unexpectedly and without any reasonable control procedure. As a result, they affect a whole array of project parameters like costs, schedules, resources, which will often prevent teams from reaching milestones on time. This phenomenon is fairly common, especially with clients that don’t have a very clear understanding of what they want and provide very vague requirements.

As a project manager, you should be mindful of this issue before it arises and counteract it as soon as possible. The best solution is being proactive in your communication with your clients during the planning phase and achieving shared agreement and understanding of a project’s requirements, goals, and expectations.

Not planning budgets

Not planning budgets

Project managers have to deal with a broad spectrum of budget-related issues on a regular basis—and it’s critical for them to learn how to address these problems in an efficient and timely manner. In fact, a study published in 2017 suggests that nearly half of the interviewed managers reported budget management as the area they most commonly face issues in.

Typically, as a team starts working on a project, the PM will typically have a good understanding of the time necessary to deliver a project and how much it will cost. However, teams, projects, and clients are different, and there can be a wide array of factors that can impact a project’s bottom line.

There are five common budget-related problems that PMs face:

  • Overrunning contract expenditure
  • Overrunning resource expenditure
  • Overrunning risk management
  • Inability to access management reserves
  • Lack of expenditure tracking

It’s imperative that project managers adopt the necessary budgeting procedure and make reasonable assessments regarding a project’s needs and expenses in order to successfully avoid cost overruns.

There are plenty of things that PMs can do to make sure that they’ve estimated the budget correctly, yet it’s also important to underline that projects can be very different, so it’s critical to make the necessary adjustments when doing so. Here are a few useful recommendations:

  • Analyze historical data—look back at similar projects and learn from them.
  • Seek guidance from your peers—if you’re about to step into unexplored territories, it’s always a good idea to learn from fellow project managers. A quick call can easily safeguard you from the most obvious pitfalls.
  • Baseline and re-baseline—budgets are a good way to track the progress of a project. However, as we mentioned previously, the vast majority of projects will have changes, and they have to be reflected in the budget as well. Make sure to re-baseline your budget once any changes are approved.

Risk management

Improper risk management

An important part of a project manager’s job is to manage a project’s potential risks by understanding the potential issues a team can run into, analyzing them, defining the adequate responses to these issues, and being mindful of these risks as the project unfolds.

This may seem like a straightforward task, but given the sheer number of variables in every individual project, there’s a nearly endless number of potential problems waiting to derail its outcome. Keeping track of risks allows project managers to extract as much value as possible from opportunities and mitigate threats.

There are a few things you can do to keep these issues at bay:

  • Have a well-thought-out risk management plan—this step is critical, and it should be made early in the planning phase. Start by establishing whether risk management is needed in the first place since this step can be avoided on small-scale projects. The larger the project, the more things can go wrong.
  • Outline the most important risks—create a checklist of the most probable threats to your project and outline the events that can be associated with triggering these risks.
  • Analyze them—it’s always a good idea to quantify the probability and the priority of each particular threat. Once you’ve established the risks that are most likely to affect your project, you should continuously keep them in mind throughout the project. There are also plenty of useful techniques and frameworks that can help you identify the most imminent risks like Monte Carlo analysis.
  • Plan a response for each threat—the entire team should establish what the adequate response to every particular risk should be. Similarly, it’s always a good idea to think of possible preventive measures before a certain event even happens, as well as the necessary contingency plans associated with it.
  • Control and monitor at all times—risk management is a process that demands continuous attention throughout the entire project. More importantly, it’s essential to continue exploring and identifying new risks as the project unfolds.

The bottom line

Project managers have to deal with a wide array of obstacles on a regular basis. However, most of these can be avoided with the right knowledge and a good amount of foresight.

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4 Steps Towards Improving Team Velocity in Agile

How To Improve Team Velocity In Agile

Team velocity is a metric that upper management and CEOs often want to increase—and that’s totally understandable. Why wouldn’t you want a more productive and efficient team of professionals?

Unfortunately, there’s a massive difference between increasing and improving sprint velocity. The former predominantly focuses on growing the amount of work that is executed within a sprint, often at the expense of the quality of the work produced. The latter, on the other hand, revolves around ensuring that a team’s output increases in quality within sprints.

An important part of a project manager’s growth is learning to improve velocity without harming the team’s morale and the quality of its work—and this is precisely what we’ll discuss in this blog post.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

What is sprint velocity

What is sprint velocity?

In agile, velocity is a term that reflects the amount of work a team delivers within a particular time frame. There are multiple ways to express these amounts. Typically, they’re measured in engineer hours, story points, tasks, ideal days, but there are many other options organizations can choose from.

Same applies to time frames. Teams can choose to organize their work in sprints, weeks, iterations, etc. It’s important to underline that consistency is key in this case. Once you’ve established your preferred measurement units, it’s essential to keep using them if you’re looking to reliably calculate your team’s velocity.

However, velocity isn’t exclusively used as a lagging indicator—it also works as a metric that helps teams plan and strategize their work going forward. If, for instance, a group has been continuously delivering a certain number of story points in a sprint, this allows them to confidently estimate the amount of work they will be able to execute in the future. As a result, this allows you to calculate the number of sprints it will take to execute an entire project.

It’s worth mentioning that, like with most estimations, they become more reliable as you gather more data.

Improving sprint velocity

Improving sprint velocity

A scrum master, team leader, or CEO can do a variety of things to significantly boost the output of one or more teams. However, it’s essential to keep in mind that while quantifying human effort is helpful, there’s a significant element of imprecision involved. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to tweak and adapt these approaches to suit the organization, teams, or individuals you work with.

1. Zoom out

As we mentioned above, velocity is an excellent tool for estimating the productivity of a group of people, yet it shouldn’t be confused with objective truth. By crunching data and boiling complex events down to bare numbers, we simplify things considerably. This is why comparing velocities across teams may not yield solid results and may prevent you from setting realistic expectations. The same principle applies to comparing velocity between projects.

It’s critical to use metrics like velocity responsibly. Instead of using it on its own, always consider the bigger picture. Even better, use in combination with other relevant metrics to eliminate tunnel vision.

It’s also critical to receive feedback from your team in regards to the metrics you use and the quality of your estimations. Failing to take your colleagues’ opinions into account may seriously damage team morale and productivity, which is exactly the opposite of what you want.

2. Don’t switch the context

One way to improve team velocity is to make sure that the tasks that a team is working on fit a single context. Moreover, it can even be argued that context-switching is simply incompatible with agile.

Think of it this way—a group of people provides their undivided attention to executing a set of tasks in a very tight time frame. Often, tasks are grouped based on a common narrative, whether it’s task type, feature, stage in the development process, and so forth. This structure is what allows the team to function in an efficient manner. Disrupting this context by introducing a task from previous contexts that are unrelated to your current spring is essentially a form of multitasking that isn’t just unproductive; it’s simply harmful to a person’s wellbeing and productivity—and there’s plenty of research to back that up.

Researchers at the University of Sussex published a study back in 2014 called “Higher media multitasking activity is associated with smaller gray-matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex.” The paper indicates that people who tend to multitask on a regular basis have decreased brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, which controls things like compassion and emotional control.

But there’s more! Other studies suggest that aside from slowing you down and damaging your brain, multitasking can have a significant effect on your IQ. Research published by researchers at the University of London found subjects who alternated between tasks have experienced a decline in IQ of about 15 points, which is obviously undesirable if your job revolves around complex topics.

Strategize testing

3. Strategize testing

Testing can get messy—and a lot of structure is lost in the process. A very common issue that teams have to deal with is overlapping tests, which end up wasting a lot of valuable time for both developers and QA engineers.

A good way of structuring things is to assess your UI and integration test schedules and go the extra step with planning them out since these are the areas where many overlapping tests occur.

Similarly, it’s important to eliminate the testing that isn’t really needed—and there’s plenty to choose from here. The most obvious category is, of course, the code that hasn’t been changed since the last time it was tested. While this does sound like an obvious mistake, it happens quite often in companies of all sizes. Eliminating these pointless tasks from your team’s backlog will give it a considerable boost in productivity.

Another way to increase your team’s output is to go without testing the products’ features that are very rarely used. While quality assurance is a vital component in developing a useful and satisfying product, we should also strive to be pragmatic in our approach by asking ourselves, “is the time investment worth the benefit that it will yield?”.

Embrace cross-training

4. Embrace cross-training

Cross-training is an efficient way to eliminate bottlenecks and potential gaps in a team’s collective expertise. It’s also a really useful practice when one person is away for a longer period, allowing their colleagues to effortlessly cover their responsibilities.

If you’re going to be involved in a longer project, it would also make sense to look into restructuring the team in terms of job titles. Eliminating individual roles could be a good solution to low accountability and siloed communication.

If your budget allows it, consider running training sessions with your team or even hiring third-party specialists to consult them, thus growing your team’s collective skill set.

However, the benefits of cross-training don’t end there. Here are a few more reasons you should consider it:

  • Increased self-awareness regarding team members’ roles and purpose.
  • Increased employee development and professional growth opportunities.
  • More opportunities to provide better support and services.
  • An employee base that can confidently switch between roles within the organization.
  • A broader range of criteria for management to evaluate employees for their contributions and challenges.

Well, that’s fine and dandy, but just mentioning the ways the organization will benefit from cross-training is unlikely to actually engage them in doing so. Businesses should consider incentive programs that will help motivate employees to share their trade secrets with their colleagues.

Similarly, it’s worth taking into account that by cross-training personnel, you’re pretty much implying that they might have to take on additional responsibilities. Therefore, it’s essential to create the right conditions and incentives for such endeavors to work.

The bottom line

Project managers should attempt velocity improvement carefully. Often, an improper approach can lead to reduced work quality, low team morale, and decreased productivity. More importantly, it’s essential to keep in mind that velocity is but a metric—it’s very useful when it comes to planning and estimating timelines, but it isn’t the best way to gauge the quality of a team’s output.

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Team Building Activities for Your Business: How to Strengthen Team Bonding With Activities That Create Connection.

Positive psychology team building activities

Creating a solid team is one of the most essential things you can do for your company. Not only do teams help with productivity and goal attainment, but they also provide social support and can increase morale.

Teams are frequently more productive at completing activities than individuals. However, not all teams thrive. This raises a slew of issues, including:

  • What distinguishes a successful group from one that isn’t?
  • What are the qualities of a high-performing team?
  • What does a journey from an undesirable team dynamic to a positive one look like?
  • What activities help foster a sense of teamwork among your employees?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions, as the makeup and needs of teams vary from company to company. However, there are a few simple things you may do to assist your team and enhance their cohesion.

This blog article will help you grasp what it takes for a group to be successful. You’ll be able to spot the most important milestones by which every team reaches unity. Finally, we’ll provide some simple things that you and your teammates can do to enhance team bonding and collaboration.

Why teamwork is important

WHY TEAMWORK IS IMPORTANT?

The benefits of teamwork are widely known and documented. When teams work together effectively, they can achieve goals that are impossible for individuals to reach. In business, this can mean a lot of things like:

  • Increased efficiency
  • Enhanced creativity
  • Improved communication
  • Stronger relationships

All of these benefits add up to one thing: a successful team is more productive than a group of individuals.

High Performing Team

WHAT MAKES A HIGH-PERFORMING TEAM?

To create a successful team, you and your employees need to understand what attributes make high-performing teams so effective. Many elements go into making a successful team, but the five most essential ones are trust, cohesion, clear communication, feedback, and celebration.

In this section, we’ll go through each of these components in detail, and we’ll conclude with a discussion on the five phases that teams must pass through to achieve high performance.

5 Attributes of a Thriving Team

1). Trust – trust is the foundation of any relationship, whether it be personal or professional. When team members trust each other, they are more likely to take risks and reveal their ideas and opinions.

Action: Trust can be a difficult thing to build because you can’t directly create it. However, there are a few things you can do to help build trust in your team:

  • Be transparent – share information with your team and be open to questions.
  • Be consistent – do what you say you’re going to do, and follow through on your promises.
  • Be supportive – offer encouragement to team members when they make mistakes or fail.
  • Be open and honest with your team members.
  • Be positive – trust takes time to build, so avoid criticizing your team or doubting their abilities.

2). Cohesion – cohesiveness is the ability of a team to trust each other, work well together, and be supportive of each other. Cohesive teams have a sense of “we-ness” and feel like they are part of something larger than themselves.

Action: Cohesion can benefit greatly from the team-building activities you’ll learn below, which will enable members of the team to get to know one another better. People are more inclined to trust and cooperate when they realize each other’s quirks and strengths.

Clear Communication

3). Clear Communication – Communication is key in any relationship, and it’s especially important in a team setting. When everyone is on the same page, communication flows easily and misunderstandings are minimized.

Action: There are several things you can do to improve communication within your team:

  • Hold regular meetings – discuss progress, roadblocks, and other issues in a face-to-face setting. Meet often enough so that communication doesn’t become stale or forgotten.
  • Use clear language – be specific when giving instructions or sharing information.
  • Set clear goals – make sure everyone knows what the team is trying to achieve.
  • Encourage participation – allow everyone to share their ideas and thoughts with the team.
  • Avoid distractions – put away your phones, laptops, and other devices to minimize interruptions.

4). Feedback – Feedback is essential for teams moving towards goals. It allows people to understand how they’re doing, identify areas for growth, and learn from their mistakes. In a team setting, feedback should be given and received regularly. This helps team members stay on track and make corrections when necessary.

Action: Some tips for giving effective feedback:

  • Be specific – mention the exact behavior or action that you’re addressing.
  • Be constructive – focus on how to improve instead of pointing out what’s wrong. Also, use “I” statements versus “you” messages as it allows for more personalization and helps avoid defensiveness.
  • Be timely – give feedback as soon as possible after the event has occurred.
  • Be aware of your tone – be positive and respectful when giving feedback, even if the message is difficult to hear.

Celebrate

5). Celebrate – Celebrating accomplishments is an important way to show team members that their work is valuable. It also builds morale and strengthens team cohesion.

Action: There are many ways to celebrate successes, big and small. Some ideas include:

  • Sharing a meal – get together after a project has been completed or celebrate a holiday with food and drinks.
  • Public recognition – create a monthly or quarterly award to celebrate an individual who has gone above and beyond.
  • Celebrating milestones – celebrate each major milestone along the way, even if it’s just a small celebration with your team members. The more people celebrate together, the stronger their bond will be!

Now that you know the key qualities of a successful team and what you can do to improve it, it’s time to look at the 5 essential stages that a team goes through, so you can figure out where your team is at any given moment along its path to success.

Stages of team building

5 essential stages of team building

The five-stage development process that most teams follow to achieve high performance was first identified by Dr. Bruce Tuckman, an educational psychologist. He referred to the phases as forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Understanding his framework can help you identify what kind of activities your teams need at each point in the development process so they’re prepared for whatever comes next.

Forming

In the forming stage, your team members are trying to get to know each other. They are sizing each other up and looking for clues about how they fit into your group. This is a time when your team members might be tentative with their ideas or contributions. You’ll find this is where group members are waiting to see what others think before speaking up.

Storming

The storming stage is when your team starts to come together. This is where conflicts start to arise as your team members clash over their different ideas and ways of doing things.

The storming stage is the most difficult and crucial portion of the process to complete. Team effectiveness might suffer in this period since energy is spent on non-productive activities. But if navigated successfully, your team can move on to the norming stage.

Norming

In the norming stage, your team starts to coalesce into a unit. They develop rules for how they will work together and how they will resolve conflict. This is a time to start building trust and rapport with one another, as well as learning how they all work best together.

Performing

The performing stage is when your team starts humming along efficiently. They are operating like a machine and there isn’t much discord or drama on the team anymore.

Adjourning

In the adjourning stage, most of the team’s objectives have been achieved. The aim is to complete the last activities and document the project and outcomes. The team may also dissolve at this point.

The five stages of team building are important to keep in mind when you are trying to foster cohesion within your team. Not all teams will go through each stage in order, and some might skip a stage or two. But understanding these stages can help you better understand how your team functions and what you can do to improve their performance.

Now that you’ve seen the characteristics of a successful team and know what the road to becoming a high-achieving company entails, It’s time to look at what kinds of things your team might do to foster good relationships and greater cohesion as they work toward a common goal.

Types of Team Building Activities

4 Types of Team Building Activities

A team development activity is a planned group event that allows your employees to get together and work on the dynamics of their relationships while having fun. There are many types of activities you can choose from, depending on what kind of experience you want them to have.

Admittedly forced workplace activities can be cheesy but the results pay off. According to a study done by Gallop, companies that prioritize their culture and encourage employees to have fun together are more likely to be successful.

Here are 4 types of activities that can help your team achieve growth.

1). Trust Activities

For starters, trust activities are a great way to help your team members get to know each other better. They can help break the ice and encourage people to gel. This can help your team feel more comfortable working together and develop trust faster.

Any activity that requires dependents on team members to complete a task or solve a problem can help facilitate trust.

For example, your team members could be given materials to build something while blindfolded. Or you could blindfold one team member while crossing a balance beam with another team member.

This can result in some hilarious moments, but it will also help your team members to build connections leading towards trust.

2). Team Building Through Competition

Competition is another great way to help your team members bond. It can also be a great motivator, especially if the stakes are high.

When people are competing against one another, they tend to raise their game and work harder. This can lead to better performance in the long run.

There are many different ways you can use competition within your team-building activities.

One way is to have a team competition where the winning team gets a prize. This can be something small, like bragging rights or pizza for lunch, or it could be a bigger prize, like gift cards or an extra day off work.

You could also challenge teams to complete an obstacle course or game that requires them to work together.

For example, you could have a race where teams have to navigate through an obstacle course using only the materials they can find in the room.

Now you need to keep in mind that sometimes things can get too competitive. If this happens, it’s important to have a discussion with your team about why the competition is getting out of hand and how they can work together to fix the issue.

However, even a minor dispute may have significant benefits for your team if handled correctly.

Team Building Through Collaboration

3). Team Building Through Collaboration

In general, collaboration may be defined as two or more people coming together to create a finished good. Collaboration activities can serve as an excellent method for assisting your teammates in building relationships and cooperating.

This works best when the team members have complementary skills and different perspectives, as it allows them to be open-minded and consider what each person brings to the table.

You can create this activity in a variety of ways that can be indirectly or directly related to your business tasks.

If you go down the indirect route, the team could be given a project that’s completely unrelated to their work but still requires them to unite and come up with solutions.

Alternatively, If you chose to go the route of choosing an activitiy directly related to their work, you could have them create a presentation that gives feedback on an existing product, project, or marketing campaign. This will allow your employees to get to know each other better while also improving your business’s products.

Communication Exercises

4). Communication Exercises

Communication exercises are a great way to help your team members come together. They can help improve communication in the workplace, which is essential for success.

There are many different types of communication exercises that you can use. You could have a meeting where the team has to come up with solutions to a problem without talking. This will force them to communicate more effectively through non-verbal cues.

Another way of doing this is by having a conversation with someone you don’t know very well but are required to answer all their questions as truthfully as possible without any interaction or feedback from them. This can be an extremely difficult task, especially if the other person asks what you think will be difficult questions.

You could also try a communication exercise where the team has to come up with a skit that demonstrates how they would handle a certain situation in the workplace. This will allow them to not only communicate better but also think on their feet.

Whatever communication exercises you choose, make sure that they are appropriate for your team and what you want them to get out of the exercise.

Conclusion

Building a strong team takes time and effort, but it’s well worth it in the end. By using some of the exercises I’ve mentioned, you can help your team come together and work more effectively as a unit. Not only will this improve their morale and productivity, but it will also benefit your business as a whole.

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Establish Innovation In Your Company’s Culture With These 7 Tips

Ways to create a culture of innovation

Any business that wants to stay ahead of the game needs a competitive advantage. And in order to keep themselves on top, they need to be innovative. However, consistently delivering products, services, and processes that stand out from the competition is no easy feat. There’s one thing that you can find in common with organizations that push boundaries and become leaders in their industries: they nurture innovation within their company.

Innovation however is not limited to tangible improvements to existing products or developing new processes. At its core, innovation is a mindset to how your company approaches problems and finds solutions. As Nick Skillicorn says, innovation is turning an idea into a solution that adds value from a customer or stakeholders perspective.

Driving high performance and innovation therefore go hand-in-hand. The market recognises this, and the need for innovation can be boiled down to five factors:

  1. Innovation boosts long-term financial performance
  2. Customers are demanding innovation
  3. It’s easier for competitors to copy prior innovations
  4. New technologies make it easy for organizations to innovate
  5. Prior solutions increasingly no longer work, or are no longer relevant

So in order to be adaptive and succeed, companies must create a culture that cultivates creativity and innovation. An organization’s culture is innovative when it truly supports and values discovery and creativity at every level. However, building this can be tricky and surprisingly paradoxical.

In the Harvard Business Review, Gary Pisano discusses how difficult it is for organizations to successfully create an innovative company culture due to the inconsistencies required. For example, organizations must be able to balance;

  • Tolerance for failure with intolerance for incompetence
  • Willingness to experiment while maintaining high levels of discipline
  • Psychological safety with brutal candor

Pisano captures the idea that creating a culture of innovation is not as simple as vaguely encouraging employees to be creative and giving them the freedom to experiment.

Everything in a company contributes to its culture – from the organizational structure to the team-building activities to the technology used. Here are some things you can do to help create a more innovative company culture:

Teach your employees to be innovative

1. Teach your employees to be innovative

To create a culture of innovation in your company, an innovative mindset in your employees is a must. Many believe that innovation or creativity comes naturally and isn’t something that can be taught. This isn’t true, and believing so will have massive costs in the long run! Innovative thinking can be taught and practiced, but the effort needs to be put in from the top.

According to Gary Hamel in HBR, individuals must be taught to do these four things to build innovation:

  • Challenge invisible orthodoxies: Instead of just following precedent, individuals must be taught to seek to do existing tasks differently. By fostering a mindset that prioritises efficiency, this can yield dividends quickly.
  • Harness underappreciated trends: Keep an eye on the trends that your competitors haven’t noticed yet and figure out how to use them to depart from tradition. An example is Apple’s most successful product, the iPhone. Predicting their customer’s needs and combining their two existing products, the iPod and iTunes, with a phone and a camera, Apple capitalized on an early trend and caused huge market disruption.
  • Leverage embedded competencies and assets: Encourage your employees to see the organization as more than what it sells or does. Innovators see the potential in their organization’s skills and assets, to be endlessly reimagined into new products and businesses.
  • Address unarticulated needs: Observe your customer and learn from their behaviors and unexpressed needs. This will determine where you can solve pain points through innovation.

With some training and opportunities to practice, an innovative mindset will drive high-performance in your team.

Make the resources needed available

2. Make the resources needed available

If your team is going to have the chance to come up with new and exciting ideas, they’re going to need the resources available to do it. Time, money, personnel, and technology are essential to your employees the freedom needed to innovate. They’ll also need the resources to implement their ideas.

For example, imagine working at a company that preaches innovation, but in reality, your work day is constantly consumed by unnecessary busywork that eats up your time. Time is money, and companies need to be ruthlessly efficient with it.

Ensuring a flow of resources to your team will give them the space and time to conjure and implement those brilliant ideas. This process perpetuates your company’s innovative culture, as it inspires employees to keep innovating. Plus, other employees will be encouraged to innovate when they see their peers making a difference. One study that analyzed the impact of organizational culture on creativity and innovation found a correlation between the implementation of ideas and the willingness of employees to innovate. When employees’ ideas are implemented, they are more likely to continue to innovate. Who wouldn’t be pumped by your great idea becoming the next big feature at work?

Foster psychological safety so your employees are comfortable sharing

3. Foster psychological safety so your employees are comfortable sharing

Psychological safety in the workplace is more important than ever, and it’s the key to a culture of innovation. Simply put, it’s the ability to be yourself without fear of negative consequences to self-worth or career.

Take the classic film The Devil Wears Prada – nightmare boss Miranda Priestley was brutally harsh and casually cruel. A prime example of a leader that did not foster psychological safety, making those under her feel small and silly. While her outfits were fabulous, the office morale was not. An extreme example this may be, but the rule stands that inspiration to innovate isn’t going to happen when your team is apprehensive at sharing their ideas.

Here are a few things that leaders can do to ensure that their workplace is psychologically safe:

  • Create a space where employees feel free to learn, collaborate, contribute and push boundaries without fear of consequence.
  • Acknowledge your own faults while continuing to demonstrate curiosity and innovation in your work.
  • Encourage trying new things and engaging in activities beyond their usual scope of work.
  • Recognize your team for their accomplishments and praise them for trying, even when they fail.

Remember, the nature of innovation means that most ideas won’t be suitable. And that’s ok! After all, spitballing 99 unworkable ideas to get 1 brilliant one is a far better trade than no brilliant ideas at all.

Support collaboration and communication through team bonding

4. Support collaboration and communication through team bonding

A strong team that can communicate effectively is more likely to collaborate. Collaboration is what leads to better innovation. Often different departments need to come together to implement a new initiative, so it’s important that your employees are able to work together no matter their background or personality.

Incorporate team-building activities on a regular basis that encourage your employees to bond and get to know how to work with one another. Go beyond the Friday happy hour and come up with activities that encourage your team to practice innovation and creativity. This could be taking them to an escape room challenge or even doing a relay race. You’ll kill two birds with one stone by getting them to collaborate while stretching their innovation muscles.

5. Don’t punish failure but reward success

If you want an innovative culture, failure is going to be a given. It’s a reality of trying to innovate that ideas that sound great on paper don’t always work out. Organizations that don’t celebrate innovative failures will find that their employees quickly become hesitant to experiment and think outside the box.

Rather, it’s important to recognise that there are important learnings and takeaways from all outcomes. Always praise your employees for their willingness to take a chance and run with an idea. You’ll be rewarded with a workplace that will care about getting your business to the top.

However, organizations must be able to praise failure while having an intolerance for incompetence. As much as you want your employees to try and make their crazy ideas work, the crazy ideas have to be rooted in reality.

Align your employees with the Strategic Vision

6. Consistently align your employees with the Strategic Vision

A culture of innovation means that innovation is an integral part of your company’s values and goals. Therefore your company’s definition of innovation must be clearly defined and integrated into your ethos. All employees, from the C-suite to the new hire, must be aligned with this. When employees are aligned and invested in the organization’s mission, they’re more likely to contribute to its success.

This requires skillful and consistent communication. Develop a Strategic Roadmap that clearly aligns your organisation’s goals with the ‘how’. Don’t let it gather dust: use it! Frame every idea into how this can drive your organization’s goals.

When you clearly articulate to your employees what innovation looks like, and how their innovation fits within the strategic plan, you will have employees that actively participate in the culture of innovation, no matter who they are or what department they work in.

Keep track of innovation, and reward as required

7. Keep track of innovation, and reward as required

Like any output in an organization, you will want to keep track of the innovation effort and have a rewards system in place. Innovation metrics can be placed into two categories – input metrics vs. output metrics. Input metrics measure the relevance and amount of activities while output metrics measure whether the activities have impacted your goals.

Input metrics could include the R&D spend as a percentage of sales or the number of new ideas in the pipeline, whereas output metrics could be the number of new products launched in a period of time or the ROI from an innovative project. You should also measure your company’s culture for innovativeness through metrics like the number of employees participating in innovation activities, or the number of employees trained in innovation methodologies.

The reward for innovation should be generous, consistent, and public. Reward your team not only when their innovative ideas are successful, but when they take risks too. Even verbal acknowledgments in team meetings or investing in their training further go a long way.

Conclusion

Companies that incorporate formal innovation programs into the workplace will grow 3 times more during a 5-year period than those without. That’s huge. An innovative culture can take your company from one that makes ends meet to one that defines an industry’s next generation. So establish and elevate your company’s culture of innovation with these 7 tips and get ready to make your mark on the world.

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6 Ways To Immediately Build & Improve Your Marketing Strategies: Make Sure The Work Your Team Is Doing Aligns With Strategies For Overall Effectiveness.

Marketing Strategy Steps

It’s easy to fall into a marketing rut. Especially if your company is doing well and you’re not seeing the desired results from your efforts. You might be tempted to blame the algorithm changes on social media, or the saturation of your industry. But more often than not, it’s simply that your marketing strategies need a tune-up.

So how do you make sure the work your marketing team is doing aligns with your overall business goals? There are no one-size-fits all answers, but this article will break down six essential areas worth considering to enhance and strengthen their strategies:

  1. Identify target audience
  2. Define your goals
  3. Set specific objectives
  4. Assign tasks
  5. Evaluate progress regularly
  6. Be flexible

Considering these six categories will not only help improve your marketing strategies but should advance your team’s overall effectiveness.

Identify Your Target Audience

1. Identify Your Target Audience

The first thing you should do when optimizing your marketing strategies is to identify the “ideal customer” also known as “target audience”. This will be the driver for all of your marketing strategies and tactics. Your target audience is like gold in this business – everything you do should align with their wants and felt needs.

Make sure every initiative doesn’t just happen because someone thought it up on a whim but instead make sure your initiatives line up well with the demographics and needs of who you want to reach. If something is not directly related, then it shouldn’t be included as a task.

A proactive manager will always think about how their actions align with an audience before taking any steps forward.

So, how do you find your target audience? There are many ways to find your target audience, but the best way is by thinking about who they are and what makes them tick. Consider these questions:

  • Who are you trying to reach?
  • How old are they?
  • Where do they live?
  • Which demographics have been proven to be interested in this particular product/service?
  • How does your product/solution fit into their lives?
  • What pain points are they looking to solve?
  • What sets you apart from your competitors?
  • Which marketing channels would be the most effective in getting your product/service before their eyes?

One of the most important things you can do for your cause is to develop a profile that narrows down your audience. Your message will be more effective if it’s tailored specifically towards those people who are most likely going to respond positively, so keep this in mind when crafting what’s being said.

Define Your Goals

2. Define Your Goals

Before you create tasks for you or your team, you need to be clear about what you are trying to accomplish. Marketing is a way for companies to tell their story to the audience, so you must develop marketing strategies based on your overall company goals.

Marketing goals define the “what” and the “why” of your strategy. In other words, it’s about what you want to accomplish and why you want to use a specific marketing method.

Do you want:

  • Higher volume of conversions?
  • Better brand awareness?
  • More sales?
  • Lower expenses?

Just make sure your goals are clear. It’s your job as a manager to define the expectations for every team member. If you are not clear about what is expected of them, they are most likely going to make assumptions that might lead to suboptimal results.

Set Specific Objectives

3. Set Specific Objectives

The most successful marketing techniques are the ones that cover the whole process, not just the ultimate goal. This is feasible by establishing objectives. Goals are broad; objectives are detailed.

Your goal may be to acquire more website clients, but the objective is much more precise. For example, an objective could be to increase the number of visitors by 20% over the next 2 months.

Be as specific as possible. The more specific the objectives the easier it is to track the progress.

Your team needs to know exactly what they are trying to achieve to be effective. If you want higher sales numbers, then define how much money you want to make by a specific time. Good objectives are measurable.

Start by thinking about the most important aspect of your marketing strategy. What will have the biggest impact? This should be what you spend most of your time on.

Assign Tasks To The Right People

4. Assign Tasks To The Right People

Once you know the objectives, plan out some smaller steps or tasks that will help achieve them. Simply ask yourself: “How can we reach this objective? Then lay out your plan in steps or tasks.

Once you’ve identified the tasks, it’s time to figure out who will be doing them. You can assign these tasks to different people, each being in charge of a certain aspect of the project.

One of the biggest problems with marketing tasks is that they are often assigned to the wrong people. This can lead to frustration and a lack of results. Make sure marketing tasks are given to the employees who have the skills and knowledge to complete them successfully.

Do you have a team member who is good at graphic design? Have them create social media graphics.

Do you have a team member who is great at writing copy? Assign them tasks like creating weekly blog posts.

Or maybe you have a team member who is good at coming up with blog topics but they’re not your best writer. Then assign them the task of creating blog post ideas.

The key is to place the right person with the right job. It’s always better to give someone a task they will excel at, rather than a task they won’t be good at. This will lead to a more productive team and better results.

Evaluate Your Marketing Strategies

5. Evaluate Your Marketing Strategies Regularly

Just like any other type of business strategy, marketing strategies need to be evaluated regularly to make sure they are still effective. This means that marketing tasks need to be assessed to see if they are helping or hindering marketing objectives.

Regular evaluation allows you to course correct when needed and improve your overall strategy.

One of the best ways to evaluate tasks is by creating touchpoints. This is a series of tasks and deadlines that your team follows to accomplish the tasks.

For example, suppose you wish to increase the amount of social media posts you create. Make sure that the tasks such as locating/generating images and drafting post content are done on time every week.

If not, then it’s time to determine why that is. It might be the task itself, or perhaps the person assigned to the task. Just make sure you always know where you are and what still needs to be done.

By establishing deadlines for your marketing tasks, you will not only create a solid marketing strategy but also ensure that everyone is aware of their role and what is expected of them. And, most importantly, you will be able to track your team’s progress and success.

After all, creating a marketing plan that is simple to follow and consistent touchpoints will make it easier to track the effectiveness of your advertising efforts.

It’s crucial to remember that when it comes to assessing a team member on their performance, the objective is not to assign blame but rather to improve the process. More than anything, evaluating a team member’s job performance should be viewed as an opportunity to help them succeed.

Be Flexible

6. Be Flexible

Having marketing strategies is great, but if they are not flexible then it will be difficult to change marketing tactics when necessary. Being able to adjust marketing strategies in response to feedback or changes in your marketing landscape can help you achieve marketing objectives more effectively.

For example, if you discover that a certain social media platform is not working for your business, then you can adjust your marketing strategy to focus on other social media platforms.

The same goes for if you receive negative feedback about a certain marketing campaign. If this happens, then you can adjust the campaign or even turn it off.
The key to marketing strategies is that they are not set in stone. You just have to be willing to change them according to the feedback you receive.

After all, the most successful businesses are the ones that can change with the times. Having a flexible marketing strategy will help you stay ahead of the competition.

Conclusion

To succeed, every business must deploy marketing strategies, and the finest approach to ensure their success is to keep your strategies up to date. So be sure to reassess regularly.

The overall pattern you put in place for your team should be a guiding force, not an arbitrary list of marketing tasks. By following these simple tips, you will be able to track your team’s progress and ensure that they are meeting your desired objectives. And, most importantly, allow them and your business to be more successful.

So in the future, if you find your marketing performance is lagging then rinse and repeat the steps above, to identify what needs adjustment.

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Top 10 Must Read Books on Accountability

Best books on accountability

Sometimes, even the best blogs can’t dig deep enough into an important and complicated topic… Books to the rescue!

Lucky for us, there are a ton of great thought leaders and experts on the topic of accountability so all you need to do is dedicate some time to reading their works and practice applying what you learn in your own life.

Here are 10 great books on accountability that you just have to read if you want to learn more about this important and necessary leadership trait:

1. QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life by John G. Miller, avid L. Levin

QBQ! The Question Behind the Question Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life

Stop pointing fingers and be accountable instead. This book will help you ask better questions and explains how taking accountability will benefit both you and your team.

The idea is that you can start asking better questions, the Question Behind the Question (QBQ) to be more specific. We all know the who, what, where, why, and how of asking a good question but how you start the question will influence the outcome of your answer. If you are starting questions with “who”, it is more likely that blame will be part of the answer. When you focus instead on the “what” and the “how”, the answers to your questions will be actions that your team can take to move forward.

This book is both practical and powerful and a must read for anyone who may be feeling the discomfort that comes with the lack of accountability in your organization. If you are tired of the blame game at the office and among your team, it might just be time to gift everyone a copy of this book.

2. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want to Talk About Race

You may wonder why a book about race is on this list, hear me out…

Workplaces are getting more and more diverse, and that is a great thing! Everyone wins with a diverse team that holds a variety of perspectives and the stats prove it. Unfortunately, racism is still alive and well in our systems. While changing whole systems seems impossible, individual accountability on the issue of racism and bias is necessary to push our organizational cultures to be more equitable, diverse, and inclusive.

You have a personal responsibility to practise anti-racism in your organization and that responsibility starts with recognizing the privilege you hold, especially if you are a white person. Having honest conversations about race starts with holding yourself accountable for whatever role or place that you hold in the discussion. This may be uncomfortable but the result will be a team build on trust, mutual understanding, and respect.

3. The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, Craig Hickman

The Oz Principle Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability

Some books are just timeless and this is one of them.

This book embraces the concept behind The Wizard of Oz, a well known example of the blame game where the characters are looking for external factors to blame for their failures as opposed to looking inside themselves for the solution. We all know how this ends.

The Oz Principle follows the journey from a victim mindset to one of an accountable individual who relies on their own abilities to achieve their goals. Many people embody the victim mindset without even realizing it: they are negative, make a lot of excuses, deflect, and are nearsighted when it comes to setting goals. If we are being honest with ourselves, we can admit that we all fall into this victim trap from time to time because it can be a comforting place to be – free from the responsibility of our actions. Of course, this is exactly why everyone will benefit from the helpful reminders of the Oz Principle as a means to become a better leader and practice accountability for our own good and the good of our teams.

4.  Accountability Leadership: How Great Leaders Build a High Performance Culture of Accountability and Responsibility by Di Worrall

Accountability Leadership How Great Leaders Build a High Performance Culture of Accountability and Responsibility

This book took home the top prize at the 2015 Indie Excellence awards for best leadership book for a reason. It is common knowledge by now that accountability is one of the keys to success, but developing a plan to actually be accountable if you happen to struggle with it is hard… and Di has you covered!

Jam packed and backed by extensive research, the author also has over 25 years of experience in the field. She says it best:

“Accountability is arguably the number-one issue that makes or breaks leadership performance today. Yet most of us were never taught this critical skill—not by our parents, teachers or business leaders. The good news is, accountability can be coached.” – Di Worral

If you are looking for tageable actions to help build accountability into your team culture, this book is for you.

5. The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM by Hal Elrod

The Miracle Morning The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life Before 8AM

Maybe “miracle” is a bit of heavy a word but after reading this book, you may just become a believer!

The concept behind The Miracle Morning is that you can use your mornings to develop better habits and actions that can positively feed into the rest of your day. The catch? You need to be committed to yourself. No one is going to live a better life for you, so you need to prioritize actions that will move you in the right direction and Hal is here to tell you how.

And it can all be done before 8:00am!

It all boils down to (you guessed it) accountability to yourself in order to become the type of person capable of achieving success, one early morning at a time.

6. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brené Brown

Dare to Lead Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts

When it comes to great leaders, Brené Brown is at the top of the list!

While she has written a number of great books about leadership, Dare to Lead takes the cake and is a great read for those who may be unsure about how to actually start an accountability practice. Brené’s background in social work gives her impressive insight into how people contribute and the lies we tell ourselves about our own abilities. Recognizing the potential in others starts with recognizing it in yourself and you can only do that when you are accountable for your own actions.

Brené also has a fantastic podcast that complements her written work. Her episode called Shame and Accountability is a must listen. She is a firm believer that accountability is a prerequisite for change in all aspects of our lives.

7. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Atomic Habits An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Sitting with Brené at the top of the list of great leaders on the topic of accountability is James Clear.

In his cleverly titled book, James dissects how we are shaped by our habits and how we can, in turn, shape our habits to better reflect who we want to be. There is no better way to practice accountability than developing habits that keep us accountable and consistent in our everyday activities.

James merges the most recent and credible studies with the readability of any classic leadership book resulting in a real page turner. When it comes to habit formation, start small (atomic, get it?) and be accountable to yourself. He helps the reader navigate all of the obstacles that get in the way of forming great habits and helps them form new ones that keep them accountable to the person that they aspire to be.

If you are looking for tiny tangible tips to start building great habits, Atomic Habits is a great place to start.

8. The New Social Learning: Connect. Collaborate. Work. by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner 

The New Social Learning Connect. Collaborate. Work.

Have you heard of social learning? Authors Tony and Marcia define it as “a fundamental shift in how people work, leveraging how we have always worked with new and more humanizing tools. Accelerating individual and collective reach, giving us the resources to create the organization and the world we want to live in.”

The message of this book is being accountable for your own learning and engaging with your team in the context of social media. If you spend any time on social media, you may be skeptical that there is any way to promote accountability online. This book is designed to quiet any concerns you may have and dispel the objections you may have to the concept of building teams and fostering accountability using social media.

If you have a digital team, this book should be at the top of your list!

9. Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

Start With Why How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

A list like this just wouldn’t be complete without at least one Simon Sinek book.

This book not only helps you define your organizations “why” but also how to better understand its effects on everyday activities. He argues that when you make your “why” the focus, everything else falls in place and actions that support your “why” are prioritized.

Simon has a great website with additional resources that really compliments his books. He also offers a number of affordable and complementary courses, the most relevant to this topic being Care & Accountability: How to Create an Environment that Inspires People to do More. He argues that caring for people (your team) and accountability are intricately linked and that you need to foster an environment where people can take ownership without barriers.

Simon is a big picture thinker and has done the work for us by studying the best leaders of our time and letting us know what they all have in common.

10. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves, Tom Parks 

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

You have likely heard about IQ, but have you ever heard of EQ (Emotional Intelligence)?

In essence, emotional intelligence is measured by your ability to manage your own emotions – communicate, empathize, manage conflict, and handle challenges. Even if you have heard of EQ, understanding it is not enough if you don’t know how to use it. This book is a perfectly packaged program to boost your EQ in the following areas:

1) Self-Awareness
2) Self-Management
3) Social Awareness
4) Relationship Management

What more do you need? This book will walk you through exercises in accountability to refine your EQ and help you better contribute to the world around you.

Get Reading!

Reading any one of these books will help you better understand accountability and why it is important to your own success but also that of your team. If you are still not ready to digest a book on this topic, check out Promoting Accountability and Trust in the Workplace by fellow Teamly blogger.

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The Secrets of High Performing Scrum Teams

Improve scrum team productivity

Bees are busy, hard working creatures. They’ll travel up to four miles from their hive, and pollinate as many as 5,000 flowers each day! And the fruit of their labor is sweet indeed.

But their team structure, let’s face it, is kinda weak. The entire hive is dependent on that one queen. If she flies off to greener pastures, the entire collaborative effort is kaput.

Often, teams work through projects with a similar house-of-cards structure. When everyone falls into fixed roles, skills get siloed and the project faces immense risk.

In today’s working landscape, where teams are often distributed and everyone has to be hooked up to several networks, adding risk is the last thing a project needs!

Scrum offers real solutions to the problems teams face. It’s a collaborative framework that plans for uncertainty.

But implementing scrum can be a struggle on the uptake. Teams don’t always meld to the process right away, and many company cultures clash with the autonomy it advocates.

Improving the productivity of your scrum team sometimes is about tweaking a tool, or recommitting to the scrum ceremonies.

Let’s take a look at eight ways to boost scrum team performance. But first, let’s go over what a scrum framework is in the first place.

Scrum 101

Scrum 101

“Scrum is based on a simple idea: whenever you start a project, why not regularly check in, see if what you’re doing is heading in the right direction, and if it’s actually what people want? And question whether there are any ways to improve how you’re doing what you’re doing, any ways of doing it better and faster, and what might be keeping you from doing that,” writes Jay Sutherland, in his book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.

Back in the 90s, he and Ken Schwaber designed the scrum framework for software teams.

Before scrum, software teams completed projects using a system called Waterfall. At the beginning of a project, managers plotted out every step of the process onto a Gantt chart. Using the chart as its guide, the software team hunkered down and got to work.

One fatal flaw with Waterfall is that it entirely ignores feedback during the product development. Often the final product ends up being something the user doesn’t like and never uses. All of the time and resources were for naught.

Scrum is a collaborative, itinerant approach to developing software that collects feedback throughout the project, and aims to ultimately deliver a product that the user enjoys. It’s name, “scrum,” refers to a play used in rugby where a team collaboratively works to gain possession of the ball.

Scrum is based on principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto, written by Sutherland, Schwaber, and other developers in 2001. Its framework is built around specific roles, ceremonies and artifacts.

1. Ceremonies

A scrum team works around five ceremonies: sprint planning, sprints, stand ups, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives.

During sprint planning, the team considers the next steps it needs to take in achieving the overall goal. It selects a small batch of work to complete.

A sprint is a short (generally one or two week) period in which the team works on everything it outlined during the sprint planning.

A stand up is a quick daily meeting, in which the team assesses how the sprint is going. The team identifies progress and any impediments. The daily stand up embodies a principle of the Agile Manifesto which is that team members communicate daily throughout a project.

At the end of a sprint, the team meets for a sprint review. They look over what it has accomplished and any completed product is shipped to the end user for feedback.

At the completion of the sprint, the team gathers for a sprint retrospective. During this ceremony, it analyzes how everyone collaborated, and how the team was (or wasn’t) supported by the organization. The goal of the retrospective is to identify impediments, and specific ways to improve the process for the next sprint.

Artifacts

2. Artifacts

Throughout the sprint, the scrum team uses a scrum board, a product backlog, and develops increment.

A product backlog is a project’s prioritized to-do list. It breaks a large project into small tasks. It also includes any actionable items that come out of the retrospective.

A scrum board is a pipeline system for recording work. It includes three columns: work to be done from the product backlog, work in process, and completed work. It keeps all of the work front-of-mind, and clarifies which tasks are the most important.

Increment is what the team produces at the end of the sprint. The increment is presented to a project manager and the client. Their feedback informs the next sprint, keeping the team on track to complete its goal.

Roles

3. Roles

The scrum framework includes three roles: the product owner, the scrum master, and the development team.

The product owner grooms the product backlog, carefully determining work that will move the needle and add value for the next sprint. They also communicate with all the stakeholders in the project, including the client and the organization, to keep everyone updated on the progress.

The scrum master ensures the team follows the scrum framework. They oversee the team to identify impediments during the sprint and to make sure it has all the resources and skills it needs. The position isn’t about command and control, however, but more about facilitating an autonomous team.

The development team is composed of the worker bees. The team designs sprints based on feedback from the previous increment and with an eye on the overall goal. Agile teams are small, autonomous, and self-motivated.

So there’s a quick recap of the scrum framework. By following this method, a team methodically self-corrects and adjusts as it plots its way toward a desired outcome.

Since its inception, scrum has been embraced by fledgling start-ups and monoliths such as Amazon and Google.

Although it was initially developed for software teams, scrum has been applied across many disciplines. It is a useful framework for any collaborative effort where there are more knowns than unknowns, including marketing, event planning, and construction.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s look at how to use this scrum framework to maximize the productivity of an agile team!

Embody the Fundamentals

1. Embody the Fundamentals

Japanese martial arts uses a concept called “shuhari” to describe the stages from novice to master.

It’s this idea that when you first try your hand at something, it’s a real struggle. You need to keep the manual right at your side and play by the rules. However, as you advance, it becomes more like second nature. At some point, it’s possible to transcend the rules and rubrics and experiment with them.

In the same way that making a side-kick to the head looks pretty clumsy on the first try, any team embarking on a scrum journey sputters at first. Particularly in an environment accustomed to Waterfall, it’s easy to fall back on old ways or veer off course.

In these early stages, the team needs to follow the scrum framework closely, until the agile principles become habitual and second nature.

Only when the team fluidly completes each ceremony, and learns to embody the scrum roles, can it customize the methods and use them to suit its particular situation.

Take, for example, the scrum board. It’s important for a team initially to work with the traditional three columns: backlog, work in process, and completed work.

Once a team becomes fluid using the standard scrum board, however, it’s possible to tweak and adjust it. Depending on what suits their organization, a team may add columns for things such as ongoing work, or work that is stalled momentarily.

It’s important to keep careful check on these changes and adjustments. Understanding the principles of agile, outlined in the Agile Manifesto, is key to understanding whether or not a team continues to embody the principles of scrum.

Work Smart, Not Hard

2. Work Smart, Not Hard

It’s easy for a team to approach a long and complicated project with the mindset that all hands need to be on deck at all times, and to look back over the week and gauge success based on how many hours people put in.

This often means, however, that work is approached callously, with an exclusive emphasis on getting things out the door in order to focus on the next thing. Corners are cut, feedback is never sought, and a sloppy, unfit product is delivered to the client.

Scrum is about taking a methodical, meandering approach to a project. When a team isn’t working at ramming speed, it retains brain space for creative thinking. People are able to critically pan down a project’s timeline, and identify problems before they even happen.

The Agile Manifesto advocates working at sustainable speeds, and entails closely evaluating work as it’s completed. A productive agile team puts as much time into a retrospective as it does into sprints. This way, the team is able to pull out any weeds before they choke the final fruition of the project.

Develop Intrinsic Motivation

3. Develop Intrinsic Motivation

Large organizations may threaten a scrum framework. Whereas a scrum team values autonomy and self-motivation, higher and higher levels of the chain of command incentivize different behaviors. Additionally, the overwhelm of a large, looming project can weigh down on a scrum team and cause it to lose its zeal.

Self-motivation is central to a high-functioning scrum team. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink outlines three central components to intrinsic motivation:

  • Purpose: A team works toward an aspirational goal.
  • Mastery: Everyone on the team expands and hones their skills.
  • Autonomy: A team is self-determined and plots its own course.

A team is able to overcome de-motivating impediments when a scrum master imbues it with these principles of intrinsic motivation.

4. Recognize Teamwork Over Individual Performance

The productivity of a team depends as much on the coordination within the team as on the skill sets of individual members.

Scrum is about the way a team works together. It’s not about skills or intelligence.

Collaboration is at the foundation of the agile methodology. When a work environment merits and acknowledges individual performance, it can create a competitive workplace where people feel rewarded to work in solitude.

The scrum artifacts can serve as useful antidotes when a company’s culture brushes up against collaborative agile principles.

When plotting out the scrum board, focus on the work that needs to be done, and less on who is doing it. When the product owner grooms the product backlog, ensure that the tasks are highly collaborative. Small tasks that allow people to come together strengthens the camaraderie within the team.

Diffuse Skills

5. Diffuse Skills

A large complex project requires many specialized skills to complete. It’s easy for a team to carve deep grooves around processes and roles, and critical knowledge gets siloed.

This creates a precarious scenario. If one person is always counted on for performing certain tasks, then what happens when he or she is gone? The entire project is stalled.

A productive scrum team takes steps to cross-train, and spreads skills across all members of the team.

Taking an aerial shot of a project allows a team to get a thorough understanding of each and every skill needed to reach the project’s finish line. Next, by conducting an inventory of everyone’s skill sets, it’s possible to identify areas of vulnerability.

In order to cross-train and patch up weak areas, scrum utilizes a process called “pairing,” where two people work side by side to complete a task, and each one learns from the other.

In sum, when a team carefully grooms the product backlog and designs sprints with an eye for collaboration, it creates a strong skills base, enabling the team to press on without interruption, even when members are absent.

6. Cultivate Transparency

Every organization has its share of politics. Oftentimes, people are incentivized to spin a project by inflating numbers or skewing results. These practices obscure what’s really going on.

The scrum method seeks to understand how a team actually is working, rather than accept how it says it’s working.

In this transparent framework, the team actively identifies impediments, and wants to know just where a project stands: what work has been completed, what is left to do, and how the customer feels about it.

Scrum tools, such as a scrum board and a burndown chart, help to facilitate transparency.

With a scrum board, everything is laid out. Anyone can see what the team has completed, what it plans to work on, and what it’s currently working on. And the burndown chart provides a ready visual indicator of how a project is progressing.

Building trust is also integral to creating a transparent work environment. When a scrum master facilitates a retrospective without an air of oversight, it creates a space where members feel safe to have open and honest discussion.

Dig During Retrospectives

7. Dig During Retrospectives

After the sprint review, it’s common for scrum teams to gloss over the retrospective, or even skip it altogether. From one vantage, it seems like the least practical step in the scrum framework.

Identifying impediments, however, is crucial to improving a scrum team’s overall productivity.

An effective retrospective doesn’t simply identify problems and impediments: it seeks to uncover root causes. When an impediment is identified, it’s helpful if a scrum team asks a series of “why” questions.

Let’s say a team launches a messaging service, and within minutes it crashes. An immediate explanation would attribute the failure to poor testing.

A good retrospective goes deeper, however. It asks why there wasn’t good testing: Is it because the team didn’t understand how to write tests? Or there wasn’t enough time?

The root cause of the failure may have to do with training, staffing, or time management issues.

When a team asks “why” questions, it’s able to take steps that resolve root causes, not simply surface problems. When this sort of digging is part and parcel to a scrum team, they’re able to fluidly move ahead with projects.

Focus on the Here and Now

8. Focus on the Here and Now

When faced with a long, hard project, simply getting started requires a huge effort. And when a team stares down the timeline, and cannot see a finish, it’s a real challenge to plod on every day.

Scrum is about focusing on what is happening right now.

When a scrum master coaches the team to work within the cadence of sprints and retrospectives, it decreases feelings of fatigue and overwhelm.

By setting small, manageable goals during each sprint, and celebrating the increment that is developed at its finish, a team feels strong momentum to press forward.

Conclusion

Scrum provides a framework that allows a team to work around uncertainty, and creatively adapt to changes in a project.

Every team struggles when implementing scrum. But when a team really sets out to learn the beats, and follows the rhythm of the ceremonies, a project presses on at a steady andante tempo.

Whether you’re using scrum at work, within a volunteer organization, or with home planning, after a time the process becomes second nature. It’s easier to stay focused on the tasks at hand, and to bring problems to the team for feedback.

What are you looking to improve in your scrum team?