Make the team work well

When to do it

Do this when you first get your team together and keep it under review as the work and people in the team change.

How to do it

You should:

• give people a single focus and free them from the usual commitments of their day job

• sit the team together so they can work together closely and rapidly

• provide digital tools for communication (email, discussion channels), storage and collaboration (shared documents, task management)

• make sure the experts on the team know the context by helping them to understand the subject matter and stakeholders

• agree how the team will work together, and with other people, using tools and techniques that suit them and the type of work

• give your team wall space to analyse, manage and communicate their work

• make sure that expert temporary contractors share their skills with permanent staff

• strike the right balance with reporting – if there is lots of certainty in your project, plan the work beforehand and regularly update colleagues to reassure them. If things are less certain work in small, frequent iterations and experiments, and regularly tell your colleagues what you have found out, what your latest plan is and seek strategic guidance

• get the owner of your work and important stakeholders to attend governance meetings to make sure the team is on track and provide them with strategic guidance

Try this activity

This activity will help your team get to know each other. It will give your delivery team understanding about how everyone likes to work.