Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
We all know that working in a team can help make a project much easier to work on as opposed to tackling it alone; however, we also know the struggle of team coordination. From my own experience in internships and practicum projects, I have noticed a few things about what can help make a team more productive and successful.
Proximity is Essential
When trying to collaborate on a project with others, it is extremely important for all members of the team to meet in person at least once a week. The impact this meeting has is monumental because it allows everyone to easily bounce ideas off of one another and allows for more instantaneous feedback. When members work remotely, it can be difficult to collaborate on the same task because often these tasks need high coordination to make sure all the pieces are completed.
I’ve experienced the value of proximity first-hand at my current internship. My boss and I have desks next to each other in the office, which makes it simple to ask questions or brainstorm together. However, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, we were both working remotely, and I found that coordinating on tasks and aligning our expectations became exponentially more difficult, simply because we were no longer sitting next to one another.
In a study published in 2020, researchers found that, “Physical proximity…creates opportunities for intentional and unintentional observation that provides a wealth of contextual information to help interpret other people’s actions” (Downes 2020). By physically meeting in one place with all team members, we are all able to pick up on small cues that we would miss when working remotely. These small cues may seem unimportant, yet they all add up and can greatly affect the quality of work produced.
Communication, Communication, Communication!
When a team is not able to meet together in person, communication is extremely important for the project to run smoothly. In my experience, I’ve found that one of the most important things about communication is having one, central channel of communication. When there are multiple channels, important messages can go unread by other team members simply because they were reading a different chat. Our practicum team has since learned from this mistake and we now have one clear channel for all of our questions and comments.
Even when teams are able to meet in person, communication is still essential. This communication has to do more with transparency than the actual act of communicating. For example, it is essential to let your team know when you need help with a task or if the deadline of a task will need to be pushed out. This transparency among group members can help team productivity because if one member is struggling with a task, the team can allocate other resources to help complete that task. Transparency also builds trust among group members, which is possibly the most essential factor for team success.
Successful Teams
The most successful teams are those that dedicate the time to work with one another in person, communicate truthfully and often, and trust one another. However, getting to this point where everyone is on the same page and working like a well-oiled machine takes a period of trial and error. A successful team dynamic is not created over night, yet with some of these tips, the team can get to that point much more quickly.
