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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?

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Why Transparency In Project Management Is Critical To Success

Transparency in project management

Creating a layer of transparency in project management can be tricky but it is essential to navigate. Having visibility and accessibility into the inner workings of a company’s processes, projects, and progression can cultivate an environment fueled by trust, which is vital to building a team that reliably operates like a well-oiled machine. However, there are some finer details including personnel information or financial data that don’t require the team’s knowledge and should remain confidential to relevant parties. Too much information can actually slow processes down.

So, how can you foster transparency in project management that gives the team everything they need to function at their best without divulging any unnecessary data?

It begins with understanding the basic principles of project management.

Project Management

What Is Project Management?

Project management is defined as the use of experience, knowledge, skills, software, and processes to achieve a business or project objective, which results in final deliverables congruent to the specifications and milestones of a designated timeline. Successful project management involves technical and business savvy, excellent time management skills, and high attention to detail.

A project manager (PM) is the individual who oversees this entire process with regular input from leadership and other managers so any relevant updates to the project are taken into consideration and implemented into the timeline accordingly.

Let’s take a look at this in action. A PM for a team of writers has just been assigned a new writing project. In order to begin streamlining the process, and ensuring everyone knows their role and overall expectations of the timeline, the project manager starts by outlining the goals of the project, determining the appropriate due dates, and assigning relevant writers and editors. Once the PM updates the team on their assignments, this individual sees the project to completion, leaving room to be flexible in case there are any changes or delays to the established timeline. For example, if one of the writers tells the PM that an additional day is needed to finish a draft, the PM will then review the timelines and make any necessary changes to accommodate for the one-day delay. The PM keeps the team on track, follows up consistently, provides important updates, and makes sure that the milestones of the project are met.

With many organizations looking for new and improved ways to build better processes, project management can transform the way a company operates.

Why Is Project Management Important

Why Is Project Management Important?

Effective project management is key to a company’s structure and work culture. Without successful project management, the team (and any external clients) are left without a vision for the outcome of a project and are easily subject to feelings of confusion, disorder, and mistrust. This affects morale and motivation within the team, which results in continued delays, interpersonal conflicts, and lower-quality deliverables.

Project management is important for a few other reasons, too:

1. Creates company alignment

The role of the PM is to keep the team on track, ensuring they meet scheduled deadlines, remain within a specified budget, and enable everyone involved to deliver their best work. Project management should also align with the company’s larger, overarching goals. Let’s take the example of our PM who manages a team of writers. If one of the goals of their particular company is to deliver high-value copy that consistently delivers ROI, the goal of the PM should be to assign the right people to the right task to create a healthy client experience. If a project is managed successfully, the client will receive a valuable piece of copy in line with their expectations and the company meets their objectives of having delivered work that best serves their customers.

2. Sets realistic expectations

Without efficient project management, the team may start to feel the pressures of upcoming deadlines. They might leave team members confused or frustrated as to who is responsible for certain tasks. A combination of stress and poor time management skills can ultimately result in low-quality outcomes and can have negative repercussions on the team’s morale. Successful project management ensures the scope of the project isn’t overly ambitious and takes into account the availability and workload of the relevant team members. An effective PM clears up the process by developing a realistic schedule with reasonable deadlines.

A company that values transparency in its project management prioritizes the input of the relevant team members and relies on them to give them honest feedback about their workload and what they’re comfortable taking on. Of course, some tasks take longer than anticipated or other unexpected hurdles may interfere with the scheduled timeline, but it’s the role of the PM to remain fluid, analyze the situation, take into account the resources that are available, and make careful decisions about what’s possible.

Supports an orderly process

3. Supports an orderly process

Project management creates order within a team, as well as transparency. With the right tools and software, any team member assigned to a specific project can see the process in its entirety including due dates, assignments, and objectives. In other words, project management creates an easy-to-understand process, which, in turn, helps build trust with each other and in leadership. Effective project management is constructed to think proactively, instead of reactively to certain tasks or situations.

Makes sure the right people are assigned the right roles – Within a project’s life cycle, the PM must understand everyone’s role on the team and how they contribute to the overall goals of the project. Going back to our example of our team of writers, their PM needs to take into consideration who the lead writer will be (and a backup writer in case the lead can longer take the project). Then, the PM will assign the appropriate editor, and then copy editor or proofreader. Successful project management ensures that the right people are where they need to be in terms of the project. This lessens the chances of other team members duplicating efforts and avoids inefficiencies in the forward momentum of the process.

4. Reveals what works…and what doesn’t

Efficient project management can also reveal what processes are successful and which can be improved. This is usually done during retrospective or kick-off meetings to understand what went well and what didn’t go as planned. As processes get reviewed and plans are formulated to help make sure egregious mistakes don’t happen twice, the PM integrates the feedback into their workflow, ensuring the processes within the company are continuously refreshed and refined for the team moving forward.

5. Sets clear lines of accountability

Project management also sets clear accountability for those involved in a project. There is no confusion as to who is the lead and who provides crucial support at various stages throughout the project’s life cycle. The PM shepherds this process, checking in to see if additional resources are needed. The success of the team drives the outcome of the project’s end result. If any of the team members need additional support, encouraging honesty and transparency within the overall process is essential in creating positive solutions.

6. Controls quality of deliverables

A project has different stages in which quality should be managed before moving on to the next step. Using our previous example, the PM for the team of writers has established their lead writer, main editor, and copyeditor. As the lead writer delivers their first draft, the editor then goes in to make necessary revisions to help elevate the work. This then goes back to the writer who incorporates the edits, and back again to the editor to review. Once approved, and everyone is on the same page, it goes to the copy editor for additional review. Once the draft has been approved by all parties, it’s ready to send to the external client. Depending on the project, this cycle can be repeated several times before it’s given the green light. This is a workflow established by the PM, ensuring that quality is never lost in the process and tested at every stage.

Effective project management is crucial to achieving a company’s objectives. But there’s one, consistent aspect of project management that is vital to the success of the overall process: transparency.

Trust and Transparency In Project Management

Trust and Transparency In Project Management

To cultivate a positive work environment, building transparency in business processes must be prioritized. According to Glassdoor, workplace transparency is the “philosophy of sharing information freely” within the organization that creates trust, improves morale, and increases employee happiness, which supports successful performances. The entire team is encouraged to share their ideas, voice their concerns, and contribute to discussions otherwise reserved for those in higher-level positions.

However, transparency in the workplace must be done with intent. In the case of project management, the goal of being transparent with project life cycles and objectives is to create alignment within the team and get everyone on board with the project’s expectations. Project management removes any ambiguity and leverages the talent of the team so they’re able to deliver their best work in a timely (and reasonable) manner. Successful project management is completely transparent in its process. Every piece is well-known and documented and the communication channels for sharing innovative ideas, questions, and updates are fully integrated into the process.

Another important aspect of transparency is the freedom to provide feedback without the fear of embarrassment or retaliation. Part of project management is encouraging and formalizing feedback. This can reveal inefficiencies in the current processes and help jumpstart the conversations on how best to move forward so that everyone benefits. The team must feel comfortable speaking up, which is a direct result of how empowered the employees are to speak up.

Trust is a crucial component of a supportive work environment that regularly delivers high-quality results for the company. If an organization lacks trust from its employees, they’re less likely to stay or be inspired to contribute their best efforts. There are certain parts of the project that rely on others completing their tasks by a certain deadline in order for everything to move steadily along and achieve completion.

Trust and transparency are integral to the success of an organization. Here’s how you can improve transparency in your own company’s project management.

How To Improve Transparency In Project Management

How To Improve Transparency In Project Management

  • Have strategic meetings – Transparency begins by setting the stage for the entire project with all the relevant team members. Leaders must be strategic with their meetings and only conduct them when there are pivotal matters to discuss. When it comes to project management, a kick-off meeting to give a high-level overview of the incoming project is key to establishing expectations and creating an atmosphere of transparency. As the project moves along, regular check-ins should be scheduled around important milestones. These should be quick meetings – no more than 30 minutes – with a structured agenda, and an opportunity for everyone to ask any questions or identify any issues. At the end of the project, a retrospective meeting should be scheduled so that the team can give their honest feedback about the process.
  • Give access to the entirety of the project – To establish transparency in project management, all data from the project must be readily available to the team. For example, the timeline for milestones should be accessible, which should include the entire process from beginning to end. Team members can see where a project is currently at, what is pending, and what comes next. This way, they can visualize the project as a whole and understand what it is they’re working towards. Creating a clear path and building transparency for the team ensures progress is met and that people are feeling confident that they’re being given the resources they need to succeed.
  • Incorporate easy-to-use communication channels – Clear communication channels means team members know where to ask questions, who to go to, and the preferred method of communication. This is especially important for newer employees who are just learning the company’s established practices. A clear communication method in place lessens the need for unnecessary meetings and quickly solves problems so that the project remains within its timeline. It also helps the team feel more connected with each other, building that trust and helping them be more collaborative.
  • Choose the right project management tool – To stay organized and allow the team to focus on their tasks, a project management tool should be chosen that aligns with the organization’s needs. The system will need to be user-friendly, with access to a virtual help desk that’s ready to support the entire team. Most importantly, there should be well-developed training that’s available to the team so they can learn the system inside and out, which helps them not only see the big picture but allows them to see their own role in the project. With the right project management tool, an organization can keep its team on track and increase visibility and transparency with its projects.

In Conclusion

Transparency in project management can reap many benefits for a company. It can keep the team on track, build trust, and create a well-organized work culture.

For employees to see the vision for any project and feel inspired by the openness of each process, efficient project management practices should be prioritized to help create this kind of success.

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Work Smarter (Not Harder) and Master Time Management

Elements of time management

We can thank industrial engineer Allen F. Morgenstern for the common saying “Work smarter, not harder” but what exactly does that mean? In essence, you need to find the most efficient way to work, as opposed to the most complex and demanding path. It may seem like it is common sense but people are notorious for making things harder than they need to be and wasting valuable time on non-valuable tasks.

One of the most effective ways to work smarter is to implement a time management system that works for you. Time management is defined by Oxford as “the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work.”

Time management is a hot topic lately, and for good reason! Every single person has the same 24 hours in a day but how we spend those hours matters. Think about it, you and Oprah have the same time in a day!

It is helpful to consider the non-negotiables in our day: sleep, commute, food prep and consumption just to name a few. From 24 hours, we can subtract about 8 for sleep right off the bat. If you have children and require some kind of night time routine, you may have to add on an additional hour to that time block. Consider how much time you spend in your commute, is it an hour both ways or do you work from home? People tend to underestimate the time they spend buying, preparing, and consuming food too. Don’t let your own health and wellbeing be what gets the leftovers, you also need to consider time for exercise, socialization, and hobbies.

When it comes to time management, it really boils down to understanding where you spend your time and your ability to prioritize the remaining time after all the non-negotiables are considered. Forming good habits is key, knowing how and where to spend your time takes practice and a deeper understanding of the concept.

Five P’s of Time Management

Five P’s of Time Management

Time management is a big topic but helps to look at the five categories that form the guiding principles of the practice. Consider the following five key elements of time management.

Purpose

How will you know how to get there if you don’t know where you’re going? The first key is to be crystal clear with your purpose in order to understand how to prioritize your activities in a way that will help you move in the right direction. When you consider your purpose, understand that you may have a work purpose separate from your personal one.

Purpose in Action: When you have a task, it is helpful to ask if that task will serve or distract you from your purpose. Not every single task will directly bring you closer to your purpose but consider indirect actions as well. Maybe you need to respond to an email regarding a topic that isn’t related to your project but the sender is someone who is important to have in your network. The task of responding to that email is indirectly related as you build a valuable relationship.

Priorities

Priority

Once you know your purpose, you can better prioritize the proper work. As mentioned above, not every single task will directly relate to a greater purpose but being able to distinguish and recognize which ones are more important will help move you in the right direction.

Priority in Action: With a to-do list in front of you, take a moment to rank tasks in order of their priority. It helps to consider deadlines but also the priorities of your team. Try actually numbering your tasks so that you have a visual of your priorities.

Purge

In a given day there may be hundreds of tasks that come your way. It is physically impossible to do every single thing that is asked of you. The ability to determine if you will do, delegate, or delete tasks is key. When you purge, you can do less tasks and focus on quality completion of a few.

Purge in Action: Anytime you are presented with a task, the first question you should ask is if you are the best person for this job. Sometimes, it is actually better handled by another department, an assistant, or even a student.

Prepare

Excellent time management skills don’t happen overnight, you need to prepare and put in the leg work. There are a number of fantastic books, blogs, courses, and time management leaders that can help you improve your skills. Embrace training and educational opportunities and research different systems until you find one that fits.

Prepare in Action: When you come across a time management system that speaks to you, try it! Take a moment and spend some time on Google. Find one system to start with today and commit to it for a week. Time blocking is a great place to start.

Play

Or “party”… take your pick! The point is that if you don’t make room for play, you have not fully grasped the concept of time management. Feeling rested and having a life outside of work will actually help you work better and feel more motivated. It is important to ensure that you feel rested and have a life outside of work. Time management isn’t all work, no play.

Play in Action: We know that play is an important part of a child’s development and it doesn’t stop when you hit adulthood. Pick up a hobby, make something new for supper, or plan a family outing like it is part of your job. Make sure it finds its way on your schedule.

Take Control of Your Time

Take Control of Your Time

There are literally whole books written on this topic. Here are some recommendations:

  • Getting Things Done – David Allen
  • 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think – Laura Vanderkam
  • Eat That Frog – Brian Tracy
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey

But if a blog post is more your style, keep reading because here are some practical ways to take control of your time and start mastering the art of time management.

1. Embrace an Existing System

Before you go through the work of finding a custom system to fit your needs, try on an existing one for size. There are a number of time management systems to choose from including:

The benefit of trying an existing system is that they sometimes work out for you! Even if some components don’t fit, you can always look at other systems to fill in the blanks.

2. Recognize Where You are Actually Spending Your Time

One of the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to time management is underestimating the time it takes to complete a task. There are a number of great templates online but, essentially, you time yourself doing regular tasks in order to better account for the true time cost of the activity. This will help you be more reasonable in your scheduling.

Chose a Planner and Scheduling System

3. Chose a Planner and Scheduling System

Digital or paper, or try both! Whichever one you will actually use is the right one for you. Experiment with daily, weekly and monthly planners. Instead of adding to your full to-do list today, have a place (notepad, calendar, app) where you can park incoming tasks until you can schedule them properly in your system. If planning ahead doesn’t come naturally to you, it is okay to start small. Plan one specific task a day that you will start and finish at specific times. Build your confidence one task at a time.

4. Eat That Frog

Not an actual frog, a figurative one. You have likely heard this saying before and it’s based on Brian Tracy’s book Eat That Frog. What he is actually saying is to deal with the biggest and least desirable task first so that it’s out of the way. You will move on with the rest of your tasks with a heightened sense of accomplishment and end your day with easier and with less stressful tasks.

5. Utilize Time Blocking

Time blocking is a very popular and effective time management technique that involves dedicating specific chunks of time to specific tasks. You may feel that you are doing this already but, chances are, your attention is pulled in a number of directions. Time blocking is locking in on one specific task for a set time and ignoring everything else. This helps you get in the zone to do some great work!

6. Build in Buffers

Life happens or sometimes you need just a little bit more time with a task. That isn’t a problem when you have buffer space accounted for. Whether your buffer is 15 or 30 minutes, giving yourself space for the unexpected will help you resist the urge to rush between tasks and acknowledge that your brain needs time to switch between activities.

7. Master the Art of To-do Lists

These lists can be very handy… when done properly. While every person will have a different ideal number of tasks, more is not better. It is important to only keep the tasks that need to be done within view. Don’t abandon the task you can’t do today but put them somewhere else, on a separate list. What this does is it gives you permission to stop thinking about it and focus on what is in front of you instead.

Practice Saying No

8. Practice Saying No

Yes, you can say no. The best way to manage your time is to have less things to manage. This isn’t always easy to do, especially if you have a demanding manager/job but people learn pretty quickly that doing less tasks improves the quality of their work. If you can’t outright say no, try delegating instead. You may even benefit from hiring a virtual assistant, check out this Teamly Blog for more information on virtual assistants.

9. Experiment with Tasks at Different Times of the Day

This one will take time but you will thank yourself for figuring it out. For example, many people find the mornings are best for creative activities like writing or design and afternoons better for more repetitive and less brain intensive activities like emails or paperwork. The reverse may be true for you but try playing around with your schedule to see if you perform certain tasks better than others at different times of the day.

10. Take Charge of Your Schedule

While this may not be possible in all situations, workplaces are increasingly embracing flexible work schedules. Would coming in an hour earlier to leave an hour earlier make more sense for your life? Maybe it will let you pick up your child on time from school and beat rush hour traffic, giving you an extra hour in your day when the family is home. What would you do with an extra 5 hours in a work week? Try asking for one work from home day a week and see where it goes!

11. Inspiring Spaces

Work in a place that makes you feel like you want to work. If you have a remote position (full or part time) try changing it up! You may find that you work better in a co-working space or a cafe. Even if you work at a desk, keep it uncluttered and clean but ensure to personalize it. Pictures of your family, a dream vacation, or inspirational quotes from people you respect can remind you what you are working towards.

If you are looking for even more time management tips, check out 12 Powerful Time Management Tips & Tricks for Every Style.

Take Control of Your Life

Take Control of Your Life

When you develop a time management system that considers the five P’s, the effects can be felt in all areas of your life. The ability to distinguish between the things that are important and those that can wait (or be ditched) is a great skill to possess in your personal life. When you learn how to manage your time, you will experience a higher quality of life with more value added activities.

Can’t get enough of time management? Check out 6 Principles of Time Management to Help You Get More Done.

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5 Simple Methods for Shortening a Project Schedule

Methods for shortening a project schedule

The schedule is the beating heart of every project. All project managers know how to make one but sometimes you need to do things quicker without reducing the scope of the project. It’s a good idea for PMs to know some schedule compression techniques.

You and your team may be able to shave off days, weeks, or months from the project schedule with the proper tips for doing so. There could be multiple opportunities where the project schedule can be reduced. As a project manager, it will be your responsibility to find them and help the team to implement changes.

In this article, we are going to look at new project management methods as well as the tried and tested ones like the Critical Path Method. Ultimately, the hope is to highlight areas where time can be saved on your project.

If you can plan ahead, fast-track tasks, and understand where slack time can be utilized, you’ll be able to hand in the deliverables early. No longer are project managers going to have to fight back unrealistic timelines, instead, they’ll make them a reality.

Now let’s take a look at 5 methods for shortening a project while maintaining consistency.

Project deliverables and expectations

1. Define project deliverables and expectations before the project start date

Before you put together your team and start work on a project, you’ll need to plan. During the planning stages of the project, you will be able to identify areas where processes can be streamlined. At this point, you’ll set the key factors of the project including the general design, project deliverables, and expected work rate.

If the project manager can plan ahead and work out these key factors it means the team can get started as soon as the project begins. Otherwise, the team may have to figure out things like high-level requirements and the general design which slows them down at the start.

People have different work rates but if the expected rate is specified before the project starts, everyone will be on the same page. One great way to do this is by following Agile methodology, which is one of the most adaptable schedule compression techniques. We’ll get more into that in point 3.

Understand the critical path

2. Understand the critical path

The critical path is essential for deciding how long a project will take. So it makes sense that if you want a method for shortening a project schedule you should take a look at the critical path.

If you’re unsure what the critical path is, it’s the sequence of events that must occur from the start of the project until it is finished. In order to finish a project early, you’ll need to identify ways to shorten the critical path. Likewise, if the critical path is extended then the project will be delayed past the due date.

Defining the critical path is an excellent skill for project managers to have. A novice may not have the discipline needed to know what constitutes part of the path or not. Someone with a lot of experience and training will find it easier to identify ways to shorten the critical path.

Here are some ideas for you to consider:

  • Ask your team if they can shave time off their longest tasks. Go straight to the source, the people working on the project. They may have ideas to speed up the phases they are working on.
  • Use Gantt charts to input your estimates for deliverables. Adjust the tasks based on their dependencies. Make sure to avoid inputting parallels that simply can’t happen.
  • The Gantt chart will help you to identify the critical path for the project. Please note that some projects can have more than one critical path. There will be some tasks that aren’t in any path.

Implement Agile methodologies

3. Implement Agile methodologies

Agile is a framework for projects that was created for software development. The methodologies can be applied to lots of industries and are perfect for team-based projects. The main way it’s used for projects is by breaking them down into 2-4 week sprints.

Sprints are led by the product owner and supported by a Scrum Master who will be the most knowledgeable in Agile. Agile likes change and it’s well suited for teams to switch up how they work and learn as they go.

Sprints will consist of a variety of meetings such as:

  • Sprint Backlog: This meeting will analyze the deliverables for the sprint based on the product backlog. The development team will then decide on outcomes for this sprint.
  • Daily Scrum: The daily scrum will be a 15-30 minute standup meeting led by the Scrum Master. Team members will discuss their progress, plans for the day, and any hindrances they incurred.
  • Sprint Review: The team will gather at the end of the sprint with the product owner and other stakeholders. Team members will present the deliverables for this sprint and the product owner can refine the product backlog.
  • Sprint Retrospective: This meeting is about analyzing the previous sprint for inefficiencies. The goal is to improve the next sprint and make processes easier for teams.

If you split your project into sprints, you benefit from an inspect-and-adapt approach. Staying Agile involves input from the whole team which can improve work rates as everyone will be aware of how their work affects (or holds up) their colleagues.

Remove certain dependencies to fast-track work

4. Remove certain dependencies to fast-track work

It’s natural to plan your projects as a series of tasks to be done one after the other. The next task can’t start until its predecessor has been completed. In many instances this is logical and that helps you to define the critical path.

In other instances, they could be false dependencies and the tasks could actually be done in parallel with each other. If you can account for the overlap in work you may be able to shave days off the project.

One other way to remove dependencies is to reconsider what needs approval. Red tape like that can delay projects while waiting for things like designs to be approved. Even if the approval happens on time, the wait for it is time wasted and time that can be saved from your project schedule.

Make good use of slack time

5. Make good use of slack time

As a project manager, you’ll need to find slack in the schedule and minimize where possible. Slack time refers to places in the schedule where tasks can be delayed without affecting the due date of the project. You may be tempted to hide slack time from your clients but this can have an adverse effect.

Slack will exist in any project but if you can identify it, you can start being more productive with that time. If you know that one of your team members will have some free time in their schedule, ask them to do additional tasks. You can also deploy team members to other areas to work on tasks in the critical path.

A good manager will be able to anticipate these moments and be able to remove the amount of slack that occurs in the project schedule.

Conclusion

Put these methods of shortening a project to use and you’ll be able to level up your skills as a project manager. How much time you can save depends on a lot of factors so you have to be realistic with your goals. However, these schedule compression techniques can help teams to shave weeks or even months off of their projects.

Impress your bosses by using logical steps to cut the time of the project you’re overseeing. Give your team more responsibilities by following Agile methodologies and asking for their help where slack is concerned. Your team will be the greatest asset to the project and they are key to shortening the time it takes to complete.

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How to Develop a Project Management Philosophy for Your Team

Project Management Philosophy

The ability to collaborate with team members is essential for delivering great results. How can you do this and make sure everyone is on board? Develop your own project management philosophy, so that all team members meet their goals and deadlines with efficiency and ease. After all, a project management philosophy provides the backbone for any successful project.

In this article, you will learn what a project management philosophy is, why it’s important to have one, and how to build one out for your team.

What is a Philosophy of Project Management?

In general, project management involves organizing and planning the progress of various projects to meet business goals. There are many ways in which this can be done successfully but you should develop a project management philosophy that works best with your team.

A project management philosophy is a personal and professional framework that helps you in your daily interactions with the people on your team. Broadly speaking it’s about HOW you manage, communicate, and make decisions.

A GOOD philosophy will allow you to create clarity for you and your team. A GREAT philosophy will help you put the right person in the right role at the right time for maximum results.

A project management philosophy is especially important for project managers who are leading large teams. The project manager should be able to communicate the goals of each project clearly and effectively to every member on their team, as well as provide them with all necessary resources (people, time, equipment) to meet those goals!

How to Develop a Project Management Philosophy

How to Develop a Project Management Philosophy?

The key to getting things done is staying organized. It’s not enough just having good ideas, you also need a plan of attack! And every project has its own unique set of challenges – that’s why creating an effective Project Management Philosophy can be extremely helpful for managing all these diversified tasks in your work or home life. Here are some steps that will help you construct one:

  • Define the project objectives
  • Establish a plan for execution
  • Manage resources and risks
  • Consistently communicate with your team
  • Monitor progress, changes, and issues
  • Keep your eye on the prize
  • Maintain positive attitude
  • Develop a flexible coaching style
  • Reach project milestones

1. Define the project objectives

When writing a project plan, one must first define the project goals in detail. Without this step being done correctly, chances are the project will not be a success. This is true for project planning in general, but also when developing your personal project management philosophy! To develop one that works best with the team you’re on, you must first define what needs to be achieved during each project or task at hand.

Once project goals are defined, then everyone will know exactly how they fit into the project.

2. Establish a plan for execution

Next, project managers must outline how they and their team will reach each project goal. This is where project management tools come in handy. The project manager should be able to break down each task at hand into manageable chunks that can be finished within a reasonable timeframe (without rushing or delaying).

After project plans are in place, sharing them with the team will help everyone understand how their work ties back to project success.

3. Manage resources and risks

It is important for project managers to ensure that their team has all necessary resources available. These could include people, time and equipment so they can complete projects on schedule with quality results. A good philosophy of project management will help you distribute these appropriately so that deadlines can be met on time and with ease!

Manage resources and risks

For example: if a small delay occurs in the project timeline but your team has all the necessary project resources, then there is no need to panic. However, if project team members are lacking the same project resources and one of them drops out due to extenuating circumstances (illness or family emergency), it could result in project failure!

4. Consistently communicate with your team

Project managers must make sure that they are always available to their team members for questions, advice, support, etc. They should also be present during project meetings with the whole team so that everyone’s voices can be heard equally.

Having project status meetings is also very important for project managers. These are necessary to discuss project progress, project problems, etc. Project managers must be always available for their team members during these meetings as well.

Making sure that everyone understands the project goals and how they plan to achieve them is a key component of developing your project management philosophy. This communication not only helps you get all necessary tasks done on time but also allows project managers to collect feedback from their team members.

Therefore, developing a project management philosophy that works best with your team is not an easy task, but it’s worth it in the end! A good project management philosophy should reduce or eliminate any confusion about how people are expected to contribute to project tasks. And most importantly, it should help project managers get the project done faster AND better!

Once these steps are taken project managers can monitor the progress of each task closely and provide support when needed.

5. Monitor progress, changes, and issues

Even with a project plan that is both detailed and thorough, there can still be unexpected changes or problems on the horizon. It’s important to stay flexible in project management so the project manager should always be alert for these issues.

Once an issue arises (or if something doesn’t go according to plan), project managers must re-evaluate their original project plan to successfully overcome the problem.

It’s important for project managers not to take these changes personally, and they should continue encouraging their team members when things get tough! They must focus on staying positive while being empathetic at all times. This will help them stay calm during challenging project situations (which is essential for the success of a project).

6. Keep your eye on the prize

Project managers should also ensure that they remain focused during each project. This will help project teams stay on target and complete tasks as efficiently as possible without getting discouraged or distracted along the way.

Keep your eye on the prize

A great project management philosophy is to always have a PLAN B in place so that if something unexpected happens, you can shift gears with minimal effort/disruption. You don’t want project team members feeling uncertain about their project goals as it will lead to project failure.

7. Maintain a positive attitude

It’s easy to get discouraged by the inevitable roadblocks that appear during any project, but project managers must learn how to stay positive, so they don’t negatively affect their team members’ morale. Furthermore, it’s important NOT to lose sight of the project goals as each project presents different problems.

A project manager’s attitude is contagious, so it will affect everyone on the project team, especially when things are tough. Project managers should remain understanding and open-minded to new ideas, instead of getting defensive or frustrated during project meetings with their team members. They must also be willing to compromise in order to stay focused on project success.

8. Develop a flexible coaching style

Project managers should also spend time crafting specific strategies for working with each team member. This is where project management philosophies begin to take shape!

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to project management, so project managers need to be able to match the right coaching strategy with each team member. This will help them get more done in a shorter amount of time while maintaining high project quality.

In addition to being aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, project managers should also spend some time observing how other people on their team work. This will help project managers to come up with the best coaching strategy for each person on the project at hand!

Once these steps are taken, project managers can monitor the progress of each task closely and provide support when needed.

9. Reach project milestones

Lastly, project managers should never lose sight of their project goals! When setting deadlines for certain tasks in a project plan, it’s important to also set smaller checkpoints along the way so that everyone knows exactly where they are at any given time.

Each project goal is important, but project managers should also be aware of the milestones they are hitting along the way in order to celebrate them when appropriate. This will help further motivate your team members and project success will soon follow.

Reach project milestones

Conclusion

Developing a project management philosophy that works well for your team is not an easy task, but it’s worth it in the end. In general, a good Project Management Philosophy should reduce or eliminate any confusion about how people are expected to contribute to project tasks. And, most importantly, it should help project managers get the job done faster AND better!

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13 Best Ways to Send Money to India

Best way to send money to India

More and more businesses are turning to India to supplement their workforce. However, once they overcome the challenge of finding remote workers, they’re confronted with a new obstacle–how exactly do you send money to India?

Fortunately, we’ve got the answer right here! In this blog post, we’ll tell you what you should consider before sending money to India, share with you your best options for transferring money, and discuss the various pros and cons of each of those options.

Things to Consider When Sending Money to India

Before selecting a payment method, you’ll first want to evaluate it based on the following criteria:

1. Speed

Everyone values being paid promptly. While remote workers typically realize there may be some delays sending money overseas, you should aim to make those delays reasonable.

For instance, although you could send a personal check through the United States Post Office’s First Class Mail International Service, deliveries generally take 7-21 days to arrive–and even that timeframe isn’t guaranteed. Rather than go that route, it’s a better idea to look for a service that offers a faster delivery time.

2. Ease-of-Use

Some money remittance services are more arduous to use than others. After all, there’s a big difference between driving to your local bank to get an international money order and hopping on your phone to send a payment electronically.

While you might not mind a bank trip for a one-off payment, it’s definitely worth choosing an electronic payment method if you expect to be sending money on a regular basis.

3. Fees

Regardless of how you opt to send money to India, you’ll typically have to pay fees. Be aware that these fees can vary significantly from provider to provider.

For instance, most banks charge $35-$65 to wire money internationally. However, Bank of America doesn’t charge anything–as long as you send the money in rupees, India’s official currency.

Exchange Rate

4. Exchange Rate

Exchange rates are constantly fluctuating. By way of example, at the time of this writing, one dollar is equal to 74.46 Indian rupees, whereas 5 years ago, it was equal to 65.11 Indian rupees.

While the exchange rate may not seem like such a big deal to you, it will matter to your recipient–who won’t receive the full amount of the money you send. Take, for instance, the difference between two $1,000 transactions, calculated using different exchange rates:

USD/INR 74.089 = US $1,000 becomes 74,089 Indian rupees
USD/INR 71.012 = US $1,000 becomes 71,012 Indian rupees

 

As you can see, even this relatively small difference in exchange rates translates into 3,000 less rupees for the recipient. And of course, the larger the transaction, the more money your recipient will lose out on.

That’s why it’s a good idea to find out the mid-market rate–the exchange rate banks use when they’re trading with each other. Then, compare different money remittance services to see what their exchange rates are–so you can see how much of a markup they’re charging.

To simplify this process, we suggest visiting Exchange Rate IQ, a website that lets you quickly compare exchange rates among different money transfer providers.

5. Reliability

According to Incomopedia, “Money transfer companies aren’t subject to the same legal requirements as banks. In fact, they aren’t closely regulated at all, so using them is inherently risky.”

To avoid those risks, Incomopedia suggests seeking out a money transfer provider that provides bank-grade encryption–that’s important because the provider will have all your bank details and were they to be hacked, you could have your money stolen.

Furthermore, you’ll want to select a transparent provider, since hidden fees are the most common way money transfer companies cheat you out of your money. To assess whether there are any hidden fees, be sure to read over the Terms and Conditions before using a money transfer provider for the first time.

Best Ways to Send Money to India

The Best Ways to Send Money to India

To make it easier for you to choose a money transfer provider, we’ve identified our top picks for each of these categories:

  • Best for Low Exchange Rates
  • Best for Technophobes
  • Best for Sending Money to Friends and Family
  • Best for B2B Money Transfers
  • Best for Sending Large Amounts of Money
  • Best for Low Fees
  • Best for Quick Transfers

Best for Low Exchange Rates

Wise

1. Wise

Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise was developed by two guys who grew frustrated by the expensive fees and bad exchange rates they experienced with other transfer services.

As a result, Wise has lower fees than many of its competitors, which is just one reason the company’s many fans give Wise rave reviews on Trustpilot (4.6/5 stars).

Although Wise doesn’t have branch locations, users can send money to India via the company’s website or its app. Additionally, money transfers can be funded with a bank debit, wire transfer, debit card, or credit card, although fees vary depending on the method used.

Pros

  • Money transfers are done using the mid-market exchange rate; even better, you can lock in that rate for a period of time should you decide not to send money immediately.
  • No hidden fees – you can visit Wise’s website to calculate how much it would cost to transfer money using Wise, as well as via its competitors. If Wise isn’t the cheapest option, the company will let you know upfront.
  • Fast cash transfers – Wise lets you send money within one day using a same day transfer or even instantly, with an instant money transfer.
  • Wise is considered a safe and reliable money transfer provider.

Cons

  • You can’t fund a Wise payment with cash.
  • No cash pickup option–you can only send money directly to someone’s bank account.
  • When sending amounts larger than $10,000, a foreign exchange specialist may be cheaper than Wise.
  • Customer service is only available by phone in the US from 9am until 5pm ET on weekdays.

Best for Technophobes

Money Order

2. Money Order

If you want to send money securely to India but don’t want to do so over the Internet, a money order is a great option. A money order is a printed, pre-paid certificate that can be mailed to your Indian recipient for cashing. Money orders can be purchased at banks, gas stations, grocery stores, the post office, and other third-party locations.

Pros

  • Relatively cheap – a money order typically costs $5 or less
  • If a money order hasn’t been cashed yet, you can still cancel it (for a fee).
  • Recipients typically don’t need a bank account to cash a money order.
  • An ID is required to cash a money order, which minimizes your risk.

Cons

  • Money orders usually have poor exchange rates.
  • If you need to replace a lost money order, it can take the issuer 20-30 days to send you a new one and as long as 8 weeks if you don’t have the receipt.
  • International money orders can be made out for a maximum of $700, so you’ll need several if you want to send a larger amount.
  • It might take weeks for your money order to reach India via snail mail.

Best for Sending Money to Friends and Family in India

Remitly

3. Remitly

Headquartered in Seattle, Remitly is a great option when you want to send money to friends and family fast. It’s also a secure and reliable choice for transferring money, since the company is registered with the U.S. Dept. of Treasury as a Money Services Business and offers 100% satisfaction on your transactions–or your fees back.

Additionally, Remitly makes sending money easy and convenient with its highly rated mobile app (4.8 on Google Play, 4.9 on the Apple app store).

Pros

  • Remitly offers a more favorable exchange rate for first-time users.
  • Two options for sending money–Express and Economy; Express arrives within 4 hours and Economy takes 3-5 business days.
  • No fees if you send $1,000 or more; a flat fee of $3.99 for smaller transactions.
  • Money can be transferred to 130+ Indian banks, and Remitly allows recipients to pick up their funds at 100,000+ cash pick-up locations throughout India.

Cons

The Express delivery option offers a less favorable exchange rate than the Economy option.

Lower sending limits than some other companies – you can send $2,999 to $10,000, depending on how much information you provide to confirm your identity.

Remitly is for personal transactions, not business ones – if you try to make a business transaction, your account is at risk of being flagged.

Remitly charges an additional 3% fee for credit card transactions – still, this is fairly comparable to many of the other companies on this list.

Best for B2B Money Transfers

XE Money Transfer

4. XE Money Transfer

XE is a well-known, trusted money service provider that earns rave reviews from its customers (9.6/10). Although the company doesn’t have branch locations like some of its competitors, transfers can be made via XE’s website or mobile app and funded with a bank account or credit/debit card.

Unlike some of the other money transfer providers on this list, XE offers two different types of accounts–personal and business. Business account holders gain access to a variety of tools and currency risk management solutions–which is why it’s well-worth considering XE for money transfers if you own and operate your own business.

Pros

  • XE is fast – most money transfers to India are completed within just a few minutes.
  • No limits on the amount of money you can transfer – you can send up to $500,000 online or more if you contact XE by phone.
  • Competitive rates – while banks typically charge 3 – 7% of the amount being sent (fees + exchange rate markup), XE usually charges .5 – 2%.
  • XE doesn’t charge a fee when sending money funded with a bank transfer or direct debit (note: the company does add an exchange rate markup).

Cons

  • For money transfers less than $7,000, XE charges a higher markup on the exchange rate.
  • Recipients don’t have the ability to receive money via cash pickup; money must be sent to a bank account.
  • Setting up a new account can be a lengthy process.
  • All currency transfers are done through the SWIFT banking network, and banks at either end may charge the recipient some fees; XE has no control over this.

Payoneer

5. Payoneer

US-based Payoneer is a financial services company that was founded in 2005. With lots of big-name clients, like Google, Airbnb, Upwork, Amazon, and Walmart, Payoneer is a popular and trusted choice for B2B transfers.

Payoneer has extensive reach, and it offers services in India, as well as over 195 countries with 100+ currencies. When making an international payment, users have the option of paying via a bank account or a credit card, respectively incurring a 1% or 3% fee. However, no fees are charged if money is sent from one Payoneer account to another and funded with a Payoneer balance.

Pros

  • Lower exchange rate than some other money transfer options (up to 2% above the market exchange rate).
  • Once a payment is received, Payoneer transfers it within 24 hours to your recipient’s bank account.
  • Payoneer typically receives high reviews from its users and has a score of 4.6/5 on Trustpilot.
  • With the ability to batch pay multiple contractors at once, Payoneer makes it easy to process payroll.

Cons

  • Payoneer allows business payments only, so you can’t use the service to send money to friends or family abroad.
  • For a 12-month period of inactivity, Payoneer charges an annual fee of $29.95.
  • Reportedly, there are a number of hoops your Indian recipient may have to jump through to receive a global payment, including presenting a copy of an ID, an invoice, screenshots of account activity, etc.
  • Although Payoneer offers 24/7 phone, email, and live chat customer support, a small percentage of customers have reported that customer service is slow.

Best for Sending Large Amounts of Money

Wire Transfer

6. Wire Transfer

A wire transfer is used to transfer money electronically from one bank to another. The money is then credited to your recipient’s bank account.

International wire transfers can be made from virtually any bank and in many cases, online, via your bank’s website. Additionally, you can also send an international wire using a non-bank transfer service–which is well-worth considering since these services typically charge lower fees than banks do.

Pros

  • Wire transfers are generally considered a very safe option for sending money internationally.
  • Unlike ACH transfers, wire transfers are processed faster and typically take around 2 business days.
  • Some banks don’t have transaction limits, so you can send as much money as you want with a wire transfer.
  • There usually isn’t a hold put on the money, so recipients won’t have to wait for the funds they receive to clear.

Cons

  • An international wire transfer is nonreversible–making it riskier than some of the other payment remittance services listed here.
  • Banks typically charge a $30-$75 fee for outgoing international wires, making this a relatively expensive option.
  • Exchange rates vary from bank to bank, sometimes significantly. Typically, banks don’t readily share their exchange rate markup, so beware of hidden wire transfer fees.
  • No cash pickup option – the recipient must have a bank account that you can transfer the money into.

Best for Low Fees

Western Union

7. Western Union

With 150 years in the industry, Western Union is a reliable source for making international money transfers to India. Plus, as the largest money transfer provider, Western Union not only offers online transfers and a mobile app, but it also has more than 42,000 US locations–making it really convenient to transfer money in-person at a Western Union branch.

Additionally, Western Union has a low exchange rate markup and zero fees if you fund the payment with your bank account and don’t mind a longer transfer period (0-4 business days).

Pros

  • Transfers are done in real-time if you send less than 200,000 INR (about $2,709 USD) and pay with a debit or credit card.
  • Western Union’s exchange rate markup is low, compared to other services.
  • Western Union offers a 24/7 live chat option.
  • No fees if you transfer money from your bank account directly to the bank account of your recipient.

Cons

  • Higher fees if you arrange for cash to be picked up in-person, rather than transferring it directly to a bank account.
  • If you make your money transfer in-person at a Western Union branch, you’ll be subject to a higher exchange rate markup.
  • Western Union doesn’t have an email customer support option.
  • Like most money transfer services, Western Union charges significantly more to send cash via credit card. For instance, the fee for sending $1,000 USD by credit card to a bank account in India is $29.99, compared to just $2.99 when paying with a debit card.

Nacha

8. ACH Transfer

One of the more secure methods for sending money to India, an ACH transfer is a bank-to-bank transfer that goes through the Automated Clearing House, an electronic funds transfer system run by NACHA. You’ve probably sent or received an ACH transfer yourself, if you’ve ever been paid via direct deposit or used your bank’s bill pay option.

ACH transfers are super-convenient, since no trip to the bank is required, and fees are small to non-existent–however, be aware that with ACH transfers, it can take anywhere from 3-5 business days for recipients to receive their money.

Pros

  • ACH transfers are typically free, although some banks may charge a small $1.00 fee per transaction.
  • Unlike some other money transfer options, if you make an error when submitting an international ACH transfer, you may be able to reverse it.
  • Most banks provide extensive customer support, offering multiple easy ways to get in touch with a representative.
  • International ACH transfers are incredibly convenient, since you can do them online.

Cons

  • Depending on the bank, you may be subject to per transaction transfer limits or daily/weekly/monthly limits.
  • ACH transfers can take as long as 3-5 business days.
  • No cash pickup option – this transfer method only works if your recipient has a bank account.
  • Although banks use the mid-market exchange rate when trading with each other, they do markup international ACH transfers; the markup percentage varies, depending on the bank you use.

Ria

9. Ria

One of the largest money transfer services, Ria is a safe, secure choice for sending money to India. Even better, Ria offers several convenient transfer options. For instance, Ria users can send money via its website, mobile app, or in-person at one of its branch locations, which are often conveniently located inside Walmart and 7-Eleven. Additionally, Ria allows users to send money directly to a bank account or for cash pickup at locations throughout India

Pros

  • Ria’s fees are cheap (just $1) when you send money from one bank account to another.
  • Fast transfers – if you pay with cash, a credit card, or a debit card, your recipient can pick up their cash at a branch location within 15 minutes.
  • Unlike some other money transfer providers, Ria doesn’t have a minimum transfer amount.
  • Although Ria does add an exchange rate markup, the markup is competitive compared to other providers.

Cons

  • Low transfer limits – users are allowed to send up to $2,999 per transfer and $7,999 per month.
  • You can’t lock in an exchange rate with Ria – which is something some of the other money transfer providers allow.
  • When funding your payment with a bank account, delivery time is slow–it can take up to 4 business days for your recipient to receive the money.
  • Ria’s customer service team isn’t available by phone in the evenings if you live on the West Coast.

Paysend

10. Paysend

One of the newer companies on this list, Paysend was founded in 2017. Headquartered in the UK, Paysend has expanded quickly and to date, the company’s served over 3.5 million customers.

Despite its relatively new entry to the financial services scene, Paysend is considered a safe and reliable way to transfer money. Not only is the company licensed in the UK, but it’s regulated by the UK’s regulatory body, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Paysend is also certified by Visa and Mastercard and uses top-notch security protocols.

Pros

  • Attractive exchange rates, typically between .5 – 2% above the market exchange rate.
  • Fees are cheap. Paysend charges a $2 flat rate when sending money from the US.
  • Money transfers are quick. Those funded with a debit or credit card are typically instant. If they’re funded with a bank account, Paysend transfers the money within minutes–however, it may take a couple of days for the receiving bank to credit the funds to your recipient’s bank account.
  • Convenience – users can send money via Paysend’s app, which is available on both the Apple and the Google Play Store.

Cons

  • Although Paysend allows you to make payments from a bank account, credit, or debit card, you can’t send a money transfer using cash.
  • Money transfer limits are relatively low. Until you provide account verification, you can only send up to $999. And even with that verification, there’s a sending limit of $10,000/month.
  • Account verification can be slow, taking up to a week or even longer.
  • Paysend doesn’t offer phone support; users can only get help via live chat or email.

Best for Quick Transfers

Xoom

11. Xoom

Xoom is a PayPal service that allows users to quickly and easily deposit money to a recipient’s bank account or arrange cash for pickup or delivery at locations throughout India. Because you can use Xoom from your phone or computer, it’s an incredibly convenient option when you need to transfer money.

Plus, Xoom’s been in the business for 14 years and is associated with PayPal, so this is a service you can comfortably rely on–so much so that Xoom promises a full refund should a transaction not be received by your recipient.

Pros

  • Cash pickups and bank deposits to most major Indian banks are usually available in minutes.
  • The Xoom app is highly rated by users, earning 4.7 stars on Google Play and 4.8 on iOS.
  • Xoom offers multilingual customer support 24/7.
  • Money transfers can be funded with PayPal, a bank account, credit card, or debit card.

Cons

  • Xoom has daily/monthly/6-month sending limits based on your account type.
  • Xoom doesn’t offer live chat support.
  • You can expect to pay higher fees if you send money using a debit or credit card ($30.49 to send $1,000 USD).
  • Xoom’s exchange rate markup can be higher than other services, totalling over 3%.

MoneyGram

12. MoneyGram

Although MoneyGram doesn’t have the name recognition of Western Union, it’s the second largest money transfer provider in the world, with 30,000 MoneyGram locations in the United States alone. And like Western Union, Moneygram’s transfer service scores high points for convenience, since users have the option of visiting a MoneyGram branch, sending money online, or using MoneyGram’s mobile app.

Pros

  • Flexible funding – payments can be funded via credit card, debit card, cash, or bank account; even better, MoneyGram doesn’t charge a fee when you send a payment from one bank account to another.
  • Multiple delivery options – Money can be sent to a recipient’s bank account, VISA debit card, or for cash pickup at one of MoneyGram’s 30,000 locations throughout India.
  • Safe and secure – MoneyGram is considered a trustworthy money transfer provider.
  • Fast transfers – money is typically available within minutes if you send it to the recipient’s debit card or for cash pickup; transfers to a bank account take as little as 3 hours.

Cons

  • Users can’t send more than $6,000 per transaction, and up to $6,000 every 30 days.
  • MoneyGram’s exchange rate markup is higher, should you choose to send money to a recipient’s debit card or for cash pickup.
  • Users report that transactions are sometimes declined without any meaningful explanation.
  • Many users have expressed dissatisfaction with MoneyGram’s customer service.

WorldRemit

13. WorldRemit

WorldRemit is a UK-based money remittance firm that was founded in 2010. Considered safe and reputable, WorldRemit’s app won Investopedia’s Best for International Transfers category, due to the company’s low fees, upfront exchange costs, and fee transparency.

WorldRemit also earns high marks for its convenience. The company not only offers multiple options for funding a transfer (debit, credit, prepaid cards, Apple Pay, and bank transfer), but it also allows recipients to receive money in a number of different ways, including bank transfer, cash pickup, mobile money, AirTime top up, and Alipay.

Pros

  • Fast transfers – 95% of WorldRemit’s transfers are ready for recipients in minutes.
  • First-time customers can usually find a promo code.
  • Unlike a lot of other money remittance services, WorldRemit doesn’t require you to sign-in before viewing its money transfer fees.
  • WorldRemit’s app is highly rated (4.3 on Google Play, 4.8 on the Apple app store).

Cons

  • Lower transfer limits – WorldRemit allows you to send a maximum of $9,000 in 24 hours and $5,000 per transaction for debit, credit, and prepaid cards.
  • Some users have reported that it takes too much time to receive a refund from WorldRemit.
  • WorldRemit doesn’t allow you to pay for money transfers with cash.
  • Although transfers typically occur quickly, sending funds directly to someone’s bank account can take anywhere from a few minutes to 5 days.