Recently, a colleague asked me what I considered the most important ingredient for ensuring project success. After some thought, I shared that communication is the most important component within any project. Successful projects require constant selling, updating, and explaining of the project to management, customers, and even the project team itself. While the bulk of this responsibility falls on the project leader, each person on the team must proactively communicate with all project stakeholders throughout the life of the project.

Provoked to thought on this issue, I used the ten statements below to assess how proactively I am communicating with my projects’ teams (1 = not at all proactive; 5 = very proactive). I definitely found areas for improvement. I invite you to do the same self-assessment—I am sure our teammates will appreciate it!

1. I share information openly and in a timely manner with the project team.
2. When personal conflicts arise, I directly confront them.
3. I take ownership for challenges that arise and do not look to shift the blame to others.
4. I see my role as a team player not only in the context of my project responsibilities; I look for opportunities to help others.
5. I not only identify project issues but provide suggested solutions in a timely manner.
6. I am always positive when it comes to talking about my team and the project.
7. I compliment other project team members on a job well done.
8. I compliment the project leader whenever he or she supports me or the team.
9. I invite candid feedback from everyone about my own performance in the project.
10. I always commit myself 100 percent to my project responsibilities and goals, and if my commitment begins to wane, I strive to rekindle it.

Bill Mugavin is a consultant at FlashPoint. He focuses his consulting in the areas of organizational performance, and leadership and management development.

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We have all been placed on “teams.”  Maybe it was a project team or a focus group team or even your new service team. Most of us can think of teams that completely fell apart or didn’t work well. Let me guess what happened:

• One or more members of your team didn’t “pull their weight?”
• One person tended to dominate
• Not everyone felt included
• A couple of people did the majority of the work

I was having a conversation with a CEO whom I respect a great deal and I told him that I was going to write a book titled, “Teamwork is Overrated.” He said it caught his attention. I explained that we place people on teams for EVERYTHING but often fail to help them succeed. A lot of times people don’t feel good about the team experience. Sometimes the whole purpose for developing the team is defeated because we failed the members who are actually on the team.

What can we do to ensure success? When creating teams, here are a few questions to consider:

1. Why are we forming a team? What is our purpose?
2. Do we have different perspectives in the group?
3. Do we have competing priorities?
4. Is the goal of the team well defined and tied to organizational strategy?
5. Who is leading the team?
6. How are individuals held accountable for the success of the project/goal?

Give your teams a chance. It is hard enough to go through the forming, storming, norming, and performing aspects of team development without the confusion of why they are actually there and what role they are expected to play. A truly aligned team is stronger than any individual. There is a “we” in awesome!

See a related blog post from my coworker, Jennifer Rufatto: Team Building in 15 Minutes or Less.

Jeremy King is the Business Development Manager at FlashPoint.

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In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.

When I drill down, the assumption I find is that team building needs to take hours—even days—to be effective. In reality it is the value of consistent team building that has the greatest impact rather than the amount of time spent.

Give yourself a break! Team building can be done in 15 minutes or less! To make it most effective decide on what message(s) you want your team building to convey and center your activities around that message.  Consider the following examples:

Message: Value the unique contributions of each person within the team.

Team Exercise One:

Have each team member take a piece of paper and write their name at the top. Pass the paper clockwise and when they get someone else’s paper, they should write one thing they value about that person. Continue passing the papers until each person has their own paper back. Have team members take turns reading their paper out loud. Finally,  close the exercise by encouraging team members to keep this paper handy when they need to remember what their team values in them. This exercise not only builds the esteem of each person, but reminds everyone to think about what they value in each other.

Team Exercise Two:

Prior to the meeting, have each team member map out the core responsibilities of their job and identify what other roles on the team are impacted by each responsibility. In the meeting, have team members pair up and give them three minutes to share their maps with their partner. Do four rounds of this and then come back and debrief by explaining that nothing we do is in a vacuum. Encourage them to get with each other before the next meeting and add more detail to their maps. Managers could have many uses for these maps; yet, the primary goal is to get the team thinking about how what they do impacts others on the team.

What quick and effective team building ideas do you use? Please share!

Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.

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