The most important aspect for any project involves team management. Managing a small team for a project can be a challenging and a hectic task and requires great team management skills. Each team member has to understand all the functionalities of the project in order to get a clear picture, and work together for development.
There are a number of factors that go into small team handling. The most important is team cohesiveness. The team manager, team lead and each member of the team should have confidence in each other. The second most important aspect is competence. Each member has to have a high level of competence in his individual area. It will be very frustrating for the people if project specs are misunderstood or understood incorrectly. When you have strict timelines, a functionality or part of the project coded incorrectly will create havoc with the project timelines.
Agile Methodology
In Agile Methodology, software requirements come through many cross-functional teams. This improves planning, development, timely delivery, continuous enhancement, and, encourages early response to changes.
Agile principles give you multiple advantages. You can assign the right task to the right person, make quick deliveries, and get better customer satisfaction. One of the main features of agile methodology is Pair-programming, which allows two developers to sit together and fix a problem. In most cases, one does the coding and the other reviews the code and provides suggestions.
Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects. Scrum allows customers to alter requirement, and, the delivery team to adapt to the changing requirements.
The Human Element
You need a team of skilled people. At the top of the heap, you need at least one person who knows team handling skills and has the ability to look at the big picture and understand the project as a whole. This will ensure the customer’s requirements are met.
Competence And Ability
The team has to be agile. Pun intended. Change delivery has to be in days and weeks and not months. Never assemble a team of complete strangers. Always make sure some members of the project know each other well and have worked together before. Trust is critical, and the members must understand how to deliver under high pressure. The team must be populated with members who are competent and have the ability to get things moving. In a complex project, if one member is not able to deliver, it can kill the whole project.
Have a daily stand-up meeting for the team. Make sure everyone’s performance and status is understood, as well as the tasks for the next day. The team has to be transparent. Be honest with the team regarding client requirements and financials. It is good that people can understand better when they are working together for betterment of team skills and their personal development.
Set a vision and ensure that the people is on the right track to achieve that vision. An individual in a small team must be able to do his job without outside help. Each member has to be groomed to be competent and has a thorough knowledge of his, often narrow, area of development. These things are very important and management plays a major role on team building.
Team Building, Prioritization
Sosaley Technologies always encourages team building skills and activities that takes place within the workplace on a regular basis. Every time the team achieves a small progress or makes a delivery, it will be celebrated. We strongly believe that celebrations and appreciations are the root cause for motivation and show the team is on the right track. Ensure you complement every individual for his or her good work.
Ensure the team has some common skills like communication, problem-solving, analytical thinking, and giving peer-to-peer feedback. Teams with these characteristics are always better in productivity and deliver consistently. Ensure you develop and build a communication methodology between the team members. This will iterate the people to develop, build new ideas, and have a better peer-to-peer understanding.
The most important task in people management in small teams is to prioritize. It allows daily work management to focus on what needs to be done for better results of the team working skills.
Use Tracking Tools
Use highly productive tracking tools to understand the status of each individual’s work. There are tools like Asana, Basecamp that give accurate information on tasks assigned, tasks status and tasks completed. Updated information from tracking tools enables team members to understand what is needed for their task to be completed. Tracking tools give you a remote eye that sees how each task member spends his time. It allows you to see errors and take steps to mitigate them. Most importantly, it allows you to identify members who could be lagging behind and take steps to manage customer expectations.
Traps To Avoid
Talk to your customers as often as possible. Failure to talk to your customers about their requirements and understanding their pain points will have a large impact on your firm.
Stop Monologues. Allow everyone in the team to talk. Be open to ideas and suggestions. Not every idea is good, but unless you hear an idea, how will you know whether it is good or bad?
Be ready or have someone who solves all issues. This is critical when you are taking status reports. If a team member hits a wall, you should be prepared to get your hands dirty to help him cross the wall. Study his code, identify the errors, and when needed, throw the program and write new code. Use pair programming extensively if you hit bottlenecks.
About Sosaley
Sosaley Technologies is a growing company leading in the development of firmware, embedded systems, and other automation hardware and software. Sosaley is led by industry veterans who have pioneered software development in India, and have worked with companies such as Jupiter Networks, Citibank, and many other Fortune 500 companies.
Sosaley is working with leading companies in India and elsewhere in multiple domains. Click here to read more about Sosaley Technologies.
