Being a project manager isn’t an easy task. You have to deal with the conflicting priorities, hectic workloads, and sometimes, varying skill sets of your team members. Nevertheless, it’s your duty to ensure that you make the most out of your team by ensuring they share a common vision.
As demanding and stressful as this task may seem, it’s achievable if you know the right things to do. On that note, here are the top ways to get the most out of your team.
Understand your team.
To make the most of your team, you must first understand the people that form it. Therefore, you must take time to study and understand each team member, like the way they like to work, their most productive atmosphere, and the way they prefer to receive feedback.
One way to understand your team is by listening to them. You can do this by conducting one-on-one sessions with them where you ask questions about their work, what they enjoy, and the challenges they face. By listening, you’ll gain new insights into their strengths and challenges.
For instance, if a common challenge is work overload, ensure that you don’t ignore it. Exhaustion can make employees feel unmotivated, leading to less productivity. So, in this case, you should consider hiring more hands. Admittedly, no one enjoys the administrative burden of hiring new employees. If you don’t have an HR manager, you may be worried about the entire recruiting process distracting you from work. In that case, you can use a recruiting agency or a top talent acquisition team to help you source qualified candidates.
The best recruitment solutions will help create recruitment campaigns that target qualified job applicants, conduct interviews with each job seeker, and provide you with the best candidate from the talent pool. In a nutshell, recruiting solutions will provide you the right candidate who has the right skill that aligns with your company’s culture.
Invest in business process automation tools.
Every day, artificial intelligence, machine learning, provide businesses with new ways to handling their businesses effectively. The reality is that technology is a necessary component in the business world. As a result, refusing to invest in it means you are not optimizing your team’s potential.
Admittedly, some tasks demand a human touch. However, others can be automated to give your team members to engage in other important tasks. Therefore, to get the most out of your team, you must identify these repetitive tasks and devise a better way to handle them through automation.
You see, automating some of your team’s tasks won’t only save them a considerable amount of time, but it also saves you money. Even better, you don’t always have to pay heavily for some of these intelligent automation tools. For instance, you can use a free open source tool to automate virtually any manual process.
Open source RPA is a Robotic Process Automation system that has an openly distributed source code. This means the software can be modified and altered to meet your team’s unique needs, simply their workflow, and make each workday more productive without depending on any vendor for improvements.
Delegate responsibilities.
One of the many reasons you need to understand your team members individually is that it gives you a clear insight into their strengths and weaknesses, thereby making delegation a lot easier. Admittedly, many managers struggle with delegating tasks. However, efficient delegation happens to be one of the quickest and best ways to get work done. So, once you have understood your team members’ personalities, preferences, and skills, ensure that you delegate tasks that correspond with each person’s strengths.
It’s not unusual to face a few instances where none of your team members have the right skill set to carry out a task. The best thing to do in this case is to consider outsourcing or continuous learning, depending on the time frame of your project. For instance, if your team is working on a digital product but they don’t have the total capacity to complete it successfully, you can get consultants or software developers from Devsu, a reliable technology partner. They offer a full-cycle software development service that’ll ensure that your project is completed efficiently and timely.
Build a positive rapport.
Establishing a solid relationship within your team is a vital success factor. That’s because when there’s a poor relationship or negative rapport within your team, there will be tensions, conflicts, and ineffective communication, which will, in turn, inhibit productivity.
In contrast, when employee engagement is encouraged, and team members maintain a cordial relationship with each other, tasks are executed more efficiently. So, ensure that you maintain a positive company culture. After all, several studies have shown a relationship between employee engagement and their well-being and productivity.
As a leader, try to be accessible, approachable, and flexible. When you are this way, your team members are likely to emulate you, making it easier for them to communicate and exchange ideas.