Team Dynamics: Behind the Product
An individual article for Software Engineering Project UI 2020 course.
Behind most applications, codes and products, there is a team. This where team dynamics steps in. How the team communicates and work together will be the foundation of how the development process grows as time goes on.
What is Team Dynamics really?
“Team dynamics are the unconscious, psychological forces that influence the direction of a team’s behaviour and performance.” — S. P. Myers (2013)
The connections between the individuals in the team and how everyone interacts with each other is what makes up the team dynamic and what determines how the flow of work will go. The better the team dynamics, the more benefits the workflow of the team will go. It will create an environment that better encourages the creativity and productivity. Hence, each individual’s potential is brought up and ultimately, the team’s potential.
How to have good Team Dynamics
- Get to know your colleagues
The first step to have good dynamics is connection. Without any connecting, the environment might get too restricting or ‘formal’ which usually leaves a small room for exchanging of thoughts and suggestions. And how will you have a connections without first getting to know the people involved? Ice-breaking or team-building activities surely won’t do any harm. - Communicate
Communication will always be key in any kind of relationship. Communicating any problems, may it be work or personal, will definitely improve the dynamics and understanding of your team. This way, people will be aware of the work progress and can start doing any necessary adjustments to the team. - Clearly distribute responsibilities
After getting to know your team and communicating well, everyone should have a better idea of each other’s strengths. This will help distribute tasks and responsibilities appropriately according to everyone’s strengths and hence encourage a more productive environment. - Be observant (don’t be ignorant)
Pay attention when things don’t seem like a growth environment. This means there is little communication, less discussion and just a matter of doing each individual’s task on their own. This can also mean there is very little different perspectives, sure consensus is good, but too much could be an indication of poor team dynamics. - Keep it fun
Lastly, I believe keeping things light and fun at times is important in keeping up moral, but only done in appropriate times and quantity. When things are not always formal, tense, and strict, the dynamics in the team will be in such a way where everyone is not afraid of expressing their suggestions and concerns. In turn, this helps in our previous point of communicating well with others.
Servant Leader
In team dynamics, it is important to have a servant leader mentality. What does this mean? What differentiates with from other leaders?
“Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.” — greenleaf.org
Servant leaders are those who see leadership as an opportunity to serve others — lead by serving. They don’t see being leaders as a rank, privilege or status. According to axonactive, servant leaders have these following habits:
- Awareness and Mindfulness
This habit focuses on the habit of being mindful of what’s happening around the team. This awareness is to be without judgment in order to increase self-awareness and emotional intelligence. With this habit, servant leaders can be better at making the right decisions and actions for the greater good. Asking yourself these questions might help build this habit: Am I aware of what’s happening right now? What can I do to bring positive changes to the team? What is something I can improve about myself? Is there a bigger picture I am unaware of? - Empathy and Compassion
Before being empathic and compassionate towards others, showing it to one’s self is the prerequisite to cultivate it towards other people. Showing empathy and compassion to others comes in the form of appreciating them, seeing things from their perspective, understanding their feelings and situation, and communicating with kindness. This includes having being supportive to those you serve by building them up instead of tearing them down. - Listen and Observe
This habit is closely related to the first habit, it enhances the habit of being mindful. Together with the first habit, it helps generate the second and the fourth habits. Most people tend to lack the patience to properly listen and observe. The purpose of this habit is listening to understand instead of for preparing a response. Listening to understand means to also pays attention to what has been left unsaid. When you listen to prepare for a response, you are not giving space for understanding and will just lead to even more conflict. This will also help you anticipate future problems and become better prepared to face them. - Humility and Respect
These habits can often be misunderstood and underestimated. Humility is an important quality for a servant leader to have for its virtuous and prominent influence on others. Sincere humility will bring forth mutual respect from the people a leader is serving. Humility and respect also involves being responsible of your own actions instead of blaming it on other people. Once this and all the previous habits are well-cultivated within a servant leader, the dynamics in a team will be sure to improve on its own and lead to a much better environment to work in.
Implementation in my team — bisaGo team
I strongly believe that my team have been working with excellent dynamics between each member. In the beginning, I got to know my other teammates through the calls and meetings we have. We have a Line group where I mainly communicate and interact with them there. As I got to know them, I found better ways to communicate with them, and always strive to cultivate a good habit of communicating with each other. We use platforms such as Line, Discord, Instagram and Google Meets to perform all sorts of communication so we stay up to date with everyone’s condition.
After everyone got along better, we automatically knew each other’s strengths and were able to distribute tasks with much ease. For example, I refused to take a simpler task because I knew that task, although simpler, was better suited for another teammate. However, even if things seem like they are going well, I strive to remain observant by asking the others if they have problems with something, or if something is hindering them from doing their tasks.
For example, when there was a task where each of us had to take, I asked about one of my teammate’s progress. It turns out, he was having personal troubles. This way, I was able to be aware of it and finally covered for him by taking on his part of the task. This further shows how I implement the servant leader habits of being mindful, observant and compassionate.
Finally, keeping it fun is what we specialize here in bisaGo. For my part, I like to send memes through the Line group and Instagram. Here is an example:
This helps keeps things between us not always about work and tasks, but also about other things. This really helped in improving team dynamics by keep the atmosphere light and not dull.
Another example of how I did my part in creating a good team dynamics is initiating a cheer up ‘operation’ for one of our teammates that was feeling down at the time by inviting the others to pitch in and buy him food:
The inspiration for me to do this was also because of how the teammate in mind has been doing so well and was helpful to myself and others. This is one of my ways of showing appreciation to that teammate.
All in all, I believe how we communicate, respect, listen to, understand and are compassionate to each other is what makes the excellent team dynamics we have now in bisaGo.
Thanks for reading!
— Wilson
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