On Project Teams
Let’s talk about healthy and productive project teams. A project team is a group of people tasked to complete a project. In a typical tech project, this group will consist of people specializing in user experience, graphic design, software development, project management, and business. The personalities of the people on these teams will vary wildly. It’s important that everyone on the team has a voice, and more important that the team has a shared vision.
Creating a shared vision is not easy, but it’s necessary. Software and any other project is challenging enough by itself; the last thing we need is a team with two heads pushing in opposite directions. Different types of people have different roles to play.
To the loud ones
If you find yourself doing most of the talking in a meeting, you’re one of the loud ones. Most of the loud ones I’ve met realize it, which is great. Your responsibility in this is to listen. Challenge yourself to speak less, to only speak the most important bits and leave some of the less important thoughts unsaid. Create opportunities for the quiet ones to share their thoughts. Because you’re a loud one and have no trouble talking, use that as an opportunity to directly ask the quiet ones what they think.
Listen well and listen clearly. Challenge yourself to ask more questions than you make statements. Place more importance on understanding the perspectives of your teammates than making your perspective understood. This isn’t at all to say your perspective isn’t important, but you’ll likely find you can cut back quite a bit and still have great effect.
To the quiet ones
Speak. You have great ideas, and you only punish the team when you don’t share them. If you can’t find a voice with the whole team, find a teammate to help be your voice. If you form a close relationship with one of the loud ones, they can help make sure you’re heard.
If you get interrupted, keep trying. If your great idea is thoughtlessly disregarded, present it again. If the team provides you with no avenue to provide input, tell them that. They have a responsibility to you to give you the opportunity to be heard. And you have the responsibility of helping guide your team’s vision. If you want to be a good team member, you cannot be quiet and you cannot give up.
To the argumentative ones
Are you wasting your team’s time? Do your debates serve a purpose? Is the length of your debating worth the reward? Is there even a reward? It’s great to challenge ideas, but there are good and bad ways of challenging them. If you find yourself in a debate for 10 minutes, that was more than 5 minutes too long. Speak clearly, and make a point. If you’ve cycled in an argument more than 3 or 4 times, it’s not working.
You have a responsibility to participate in your team’s shared vision. This means you will have to agree to things you would not do if you were working alone. Your love of debate can serve the team well, if you can keep your debates short and on topic. Use your debates wisely, and always keep in mind that time is money. Do not waste your team’s time, and your client’s money.
To the closed-minded ones
You probably refuse to consider yourself closed-minded; that comes with the territory. You have a responsibility to participate in your team’s shared vision. And if your team members are good ones, that vision will assuredly deviate from your vision. You have a responsibility to your team to be flexible.
Challenge yourself to do things someone else’s way. If it’s not direly important, defer to your team members. Choose your battles. If you demand your way all the time, when it really matters no one will care. The boy who cried wolf. Be flexible with others and they will be flexible with you.
To the team
If you leverage each other well, you will accomplish far more than a bunch of clones of yourself would. You have a responsibility to have a vision. It should never be a single individual’s vision, but it should be one the team can agree to. You have a responsibility to protect that vision. You have a responsibility to implement that vision. You have a responsibility to amend that vision as new data comes in and the course of the project changes. A unified team is important and worth fighting for.
