5 Tips on how to work effectively as a team in a Strategio Simulator
“Teamwork makes the dream work!” It’s a phrase all of us have heard before, but with so much time spent on the dream, maybe it’s time we talk about how we should work as a team. For the Strategio simulator, my group, “We Byte” was comprised of, Jason Dinh, Kobychukwudi Osuji, James Joseph, and myself. Over the last couple of weeks, our team has shared a lot of highs and a few lows. What we have learned has left us with a lot of insights into working as a group, and so here are our top five tips! *Drumroll…* 🥁
1. Communication. Finding the most effective way to communicate was a challenge we faced as a group. We quickly determined that the way we originally communicate was not a good option for our group. However, we knew it was important to identify a way in which we all could communicate. A teammate came up with another tool and there was a decision made to switch to that. — Kobychukwudi Osuji
2. Planning & Organization. Humans are prone to error and are forgetful, so managing a wide range of tasks is a hassle. To mitigate mistakes we started using task management software. Task management software helps in identifying, managing, and monitoring work for your team. For our team, we used Trello as our task management software. This helped the team learn better ways of task prioritization. We could sort out the tasks and plan what to work on first. In addition, we could mark a due date and give status updates on where we are in our task. If you’re determined to achieve team goals, organizing with task management software is necessary. — James Joseph
3. Learn from failures, and take responsibility. We all make mistakes, and although it may feel bad at the time, we have to accept that it’s part of being human. The best thing we can do after we make a mistake is to take responsibility and learn from our mistakes to prevent them from happening again. For example, we had a teammate having issues attending team meetings. Instead of continuing this behavior, the team member realized it was happening, stepped up, and made sure not to miss future discussions. There is a principle in Agile called “Fail Fast,” which allows teams to experiment to reach the desired result freely. For example, when we had our communication issue, we decided to try Discord and determine whether or not it was a solution to our problem. If we had not learned from our failure with Slack and tried Discord, we might not have seen these improvements. — Jason Dinh
4. Provide honest encouraging feedback. Getting to know each other, and becoming comfortable in each other’s presence played a huge role in knowing how and when to approach a point of improvement for each of us as teammates. Recognizing your teammate’s strong areas and providing praise keep them doing their best. At the same time, watching your teammate take feedback on one of their weak spots and apply it in real-time is a beautiful thing. — Kobychukwudi Osuji
5. Be flexible and understanding. The tasks will evolve and change over time. And sometimes you will find yourself having to change your schedule last minute. Always show up with a sense of compassion and understanding, take the time to learn where others are coming from, and share where you’re coming from. This means being transparent with each other. Ask questions of each other when you don’t know something, and share the knowledge when you do. Finally, remember that a huge part of being understanding with each other is recognizing that you have to be understanding with yourself. You will not know all of the material 100%, but that’s okay because you are here to learn. — Megan Deray
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