How do I improve the productivity of the team?

Improve the connectedness

"Coming together is beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." - Henry Ford

Agile teams bring the advantage of collaborating with everyone to learn and build. However, it also possesses a high risk of reduced connectivity if coworkers see it as a threat to their growth. They may behave differently in front of you, and with their peers when you're not there. You need to allocate some time to increase the friendliness in the team so that they have a better connection, than a mere responsibility to get work done. You can see the difference in their ownership and responsibility during critical issues faced by the team.

Reward your reporters rightly

If you're a great leader, you would have felt guilty to ask your reporters to do more work or take up extra projects, if they are not rewarded right. It would be more evident from their reaction to the ask. Also, if you overpay them, the loyalty will only stay for a couple of weeks, and then it becomes the new normal, as they would naturally feel they deserve the pay. Hence, it is crucial for a manager to reward the reporters rightly.

Understand each employee's need

Every employee's need is different. While many are motivated by salary, some are motivated by learning, some are motivated by respect and appreciation, depending upon their career goals.

1. Feeling of Importance: Hence, it is wise to act based on the reporters' attitude. But there are two things to be remembered. Just as Dale Carnegie (author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" says, feeling of importance always plays a major role in people's lives. So, remember to appreciate your employees for all the efforts and goodness they bring to the company. "A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected".

2. Criticism is Pointless: Do you know what Abharam Lincoln did when General Meade let go off the golden opportunity to end the Civil War? He wrote an angry letter criticizing General Meade's irresponsibility. However, he didn't send the letter. Instead, he gave Meade trust and encouragement. This led to the end of the Civil War, as The Union defeated the Confederacy.

Go together for lunches

As said earlier, connectedness is an important aspect in increasing productivity, and lunches are the time-efficient way to do so. Go together every day as a team. Consider it an important meeting pivotal for your success. It's one way to understand the true nature of your employees, apart from the monotonous formal mask they wear in the workspace. It will also, help you understand who is engaged in the team, and who is looking to quit the job! P.S. Don't make it feel like a scrum discussing the projects and the deadlines!

Conduct Team Building Activities once every Sprint

About 75% of employees feel that collaboration activities are essential for maintaining a good rapport with your team members. Hence, make sure to conduct team building activities at least once every sprint. Generally, many companies prefer allocating 1-2 hrs of their Fridays as Fun Fridays, which actually helps get employees closer.

Have you witnessed some teams working together late nights burning the midnight oil for project completions just like their college times? That is only because they have friendly coworkers and enjoy working with them.

Just imagine, what would be the case when they don't work well together? They would pack their bags at 5 p.m. and just delay the project deadlines. Hence, though you may feel it is an hour waste of productivity, it actually saves many hours that are wasted due to bad collaboration.

Don't micro-manage

There is a difference between micro-managing and diving deep. You need to dive deep into what your reporters are doing to understand their efficiency and to help them clear their blockers in their path. However, you need not check every now and then or every 4 hours to see where they are and how much is done within that duration. There are practices such as Scrums or Sprint Planning to take care of them. Give them the required space and flexibility and see them outperform their old-selves!

Avoid blame-games

Blame games are supposed to be avoided by everyone who aims to be a leader. But it is crucial for managers. Successful leaders always take the blame for themselves and share the victory with everyone. That is the best quality a manager can have. You need to shadow your reporters from senior management in case of an issue. That's when your reporter will trust you and will take on more responsibility and ownership in their future projects, thus improving productivity!!

Don't give false promises

You may be under some pressure to get projects done. However, if you are going to give fake promises of getting your employee a promotion or a great hike and you don't keep up your word, maybe that project gets completed soon. But, they will never trust you again. Remember, trust takes years to build and a second to be broken. If your employee budges to do their work, and you think they don't deserve what they're asking for, communicate why it isn't possible at the moment and tell them when and how they can achieve it. But, never give a false promise if you are not ready to let go of the employee permanently.

Allocate resources to projects based on their strengths 80% of times

There is always an argument in work allocation based on strengths or based on an area of improvement. Some people may be strong at working independently and some people can only work on collaboration. Though it is essential for everyone to learn everything, technically or professionally, make sure you groom them based on their strengths and gives lower importance projects based on the area of improvement. In the current world scenario, there is always a better opportunity for specialization than all-rounders. So help them succeed at their natural excellence.

Never let anyone dominate a domain completely

We are not talking about broader domains such as Marketing and Product Management. But, if you own a few projects or components, make sure there is at least one primary owner and one secondary owner. If an entire component depends only on one person, what happens if they take leave or quit or meet with an emergency?

Sometimes it becomes the only reason why you want to retain a person by giving them extra hikes and promotions. Hence, never let anyone dominate and find victory. Instead, make sure everyone shares knowledge to build a healthy team to improve productivity without taking dip.