Team Building Made Easy

The saying: “A bunch of cucumbers does not make a salad!” also applies to the cooperation of employees in a team. Team building shapes individuals into a collective whose skills exceed the sum of their individual abilities. The recipe for efficient and committed teamwork is:

• clearly defined roles and tasks
• personal commitment
• a common goal
• team spirit
• motivation
• a suitable tool for task management

Here, the project management is challenged to pave the way for these conditions as far as possible. By applying various measures, colleagues and employees can develop into “real team players”.

Clearly defined roles and tasks for team building

For joint work on an assignment or project, tasks should be distributed by means of clear and open communication so that each team member knows what, when and how to do. This should actually be a matter of course today.

A common goal for team building

How can you work towards a common goal? The solution lies in the fact that each team member should be aware: “I need the others and the others need me” or “My contribution is indispensable so that everyone gets something out of it”! How can this be practiced? The project manager proposes a team evening, but no one organizes it alone, but all together. Of course, the meeting takes place during working hours for one or two hours, so that all team members are motivated and ready to participate in the organizational planning. The organization is carried out in such a way that each team member takes care of only one part of the task. Taking responsibility for a task is already the first “milestone”. The project manager distributes the responsibilities and sets the deadline by which all tasks must be completed. Responsible tasks include, for example, the location, music, drinks, games, salad and snacks. If something is missing, then everyone is missing it. If everything is there, then everyone benefits. Finally, the evaluation and debriefing takes place in the office or conference room over coffee and cookies.

Team spirit

Team spirit for team building is a positive social characteristic of a group of people or a team, usually in sports. The team works together to accomplish a specific task. The “we” is in the foreground and not the “I. Team spirit is a strong form of the “we” feeling.

How can a project manager strengthen the team spirit of his colleagues and employees?  The possibilities are numerous and range from simple activities such as social and group games to team sports and joint survival workshops.  It is important that all employees participate in such activities. The focus is on gaining experience, and each participant should not only receive help and appreciation themselves, but also signal this to the others.

Motivation

How can a project manager motivate the people around him? If you are enthusiastic about something, you should show it! That means communicating openly and honestly: What is so motivating about the work of a task or project? What makes the individual tasks so exciting from your own perspective? Where do dangers lurk for the project? Part of team building is that the team exchanges ideas on a regular basis. Again, mutual respect and appreciation for contributions, ideas, and activities. The other team members are automatically infected by their own enthusiasm.

Personal commitment for team building

How can a project manager increase the personal commitment of individual team members? Team building is strongly promoted when one’s own enthusiasm for the project work is passed on to colleagues. The solution lies in the “WE experience” instead of approaching individual employees in isolation. If the focus is on the joint achievement of goals and the mutual encouragement and support of employees, then personal commitment can be positively influenced.

A suitable tool for task management

The last but at the same time in today’s Internet age indispensable recipe ingredient for efficient and committed team building in the context of team building is a web-based task management software, which connects the team members in a cloud and visibly promotes and facilitates collaboration. Due to the resulting transparency, every team member then knows about everything important at any time, which is closer to achieving the common goal!

How can a project manager find a suitable software? The features of the software should match the requirements of the team. In practice, the requirements can be very individual and diverse. Common evaluation criteria for software, in addition to price and follow-up costs for customization and maintenance, include network capability, updates, technical requirements, standards, guidelines, certificates, data protection/information security, interfaces and subject-specific criteria . Once the right task management software has been found, working in a team becomes really fun and success is guaranteed!

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