5 Ways To Manage The Day-To-Day Of Big Teams

Working with a large team can produce extraordinary results, but only if you ensure that members work together effectively. It's easy to lose track of all the work being carried out, and to find people moving in different directions, wasting time on the wrong tasks.


Clarify & Focus Are Key:

Any good manager will tell you that the primary key to effectively managing large teams is clarity in focus. It's important for each and every team member to to know the company's primary focus.

For example, if your company is currently focusing on acquiring new customers to boost top-line growth, it's important for all team members to know about this. That way, Tim from operations will know to focus more on increasing process capacity, rather than on sourcing cheaper raw materials.

However, despite clarify and focus, in the day-to-day of working in a large team, you are likely to encounter numerous issues including interruptions, pitfalls, sync-loss and more.

Issues In Working With Big Teams

Even the best individuals can get lost in big teams, and it's easy to lose focus. The following are just some of the issues that crop up regularly in big teams:
  • Working Out Of Sync:
    For certain activities, it's really important to be working at the same pace. For example, when a team is carrying out tasks much quicker than those reviewing their work, it's easy to hit roadblocks. This is just as true in an office team as it is in a kitchen, where it all goes wrong when the waiting staff can't keep up with the chefs. Synchronicity is key.

  • Repeated Interruptions:
    If people don't know what they're doing, or they need assistance or advice, it can disrupt the rest of the team. Good project management ensures that people have the support they need without distracting the rest of the team. It's otherwise easy for everyone to get drawn into discussions.

  • Poor Delegation:
    Keeping tabs and distributing work in an effective way is crucial. One manager can't be there for everyone - you need to appoint team leaders and have them manage other team members directly and then report back to you. Otherwise you'll find you're stretched far too thin. 

5 Easy Ways To Manage Big Teams - What To Do

The problems above can be easily solved with organization and the right tools. Like most things, it's better to implement these strategies early on, rather than wait until there's a problem.

1. Organization and collaboration

Create routines whereby team members report regularly to managers. For example, having a daily meeting to discuss problems and issues so that they don't cause distractions later in the day. A stand up meeting is a great way to get everyone together, for example, and an itinerary can be built based on problems submitted the previous day. It's also a perfect time to make sure everyone is up to date on what's being worked on across the team, and what they are expected to do to help.

2. Get reports from everybody at the end of each day

Reporting at the end of the day is also critical to keep projects on track. Each team member should report to their team leaders, who should then summarize and collate reports.

Involving clients (whether internal or external) in project management is also key. They need to be happy with the results, so they should know what work is being carried out when and by whom.

3. Divide work across the team

Splitting people into smaller groups makes it easier to share work across the whole team. Smaller teams can be easily sub-divided, with responsibility allocated to one individual. Business process management software is a great way to manage and allocate tasks to team leaders and can help to track progress.

4. Set targets and milestones for each project

Have targets and milestones for each project. These should be realistic but also materially important to the project. For example, having a target every 2-3 weeks is usually about right for most sub-teams working on long term projects. Having good, strong targets makes tracking and managing progress easier. This in turn helps you to report to overall managers and clients easily and concisely.

5. Plan your delivery strategy

Delivering project outputs is far easier when you do so within a standardized process. Testing and quality checking is a key part of any delivery process, making sure that the output is as expected.

Regardless of how many people work in your team, if you can make communication effective, keep to milestones and deliver in an easily accessible and reviewable format, you'll find project delivery is a breeze.

If your team has over 10 employees, you should consider using a workflow management solution like Polydojo. Our customizable drag-and-drop workflow management software can improve your processes, transparency and communication. Easily design and implement your ideal team management plan, without the need to write a single line of code. Why not try it for free?

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Image credit: Business Startup Planning Offers by homethods licensed under Creative commons 4.  

Comments

  1. Hi Mark, Hi, How are you doing?

    I see you've used my image in this post.
    1dayreview flickr.

    I was wondering if you could change the credit url to the original site which is https://1dayreview.com instead of flickr.

    I am not asking you to remove the image, just asking you to credit the original site.

    Thanks
    George

    ReplyDelete

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