Maximizing Team Motivation
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| Freedom from
Project Surprises Newsletter - Issue #49 |
May 2009 |
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Over
the last 6 months or so we have all likely experienced challenges in
keeping teams motivated to the task at hand. We have been barraged with
a continuous stream of deteriorating economic news and widespread
announcements of headcount reductions. Now more than ever it's
important to pay close attention to the team dynamics and keep teams
motivated to maximize productivity, thus ensuring products are ready
when the market rebounds. This month's newsletter is on the subject of
team motivation. I will also share the results from a recent survey on
the subject of project execution challenges.
Jeff Jorvig, NPD Process Consultant
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News of Interest to NPD Teams
- Twitter - I
took
the plunge into the twitter world and have been looking for
possible project applications of this unique offering. Follow me at iccoach.
- Any thoughts about using design tools in a
externally hosted environment? Check out this blog on the subject of EDA tools as a Software as a Service (SaaS)
offering and leave a comment. Maybe
the
acronym sould be EDAaaS?
- In need of a simple yet effective way to
develop, manage and monitor your new product workflow? Check out this web based solution to managing your NPD/NPI
process here and be in control of your
development activities.
- Check out our quick
start instant downloads for managing design
projects.
Leadership Quote of the month:
"A sense of
humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people,
of getting things done."
-- Dwight David Eisenhower |
Maximizing Team Motivation
How
would you view the motivation level of your team - more importantly is
it at a point that negatively impacts the success of your projects? One
of the key differentiators between a highly motivated team and a team
in need of an inspirational tune up is in the way they deal with
problems. A highly motivated team is continuously seeking solutions to
execution barriers while a less effective team tends to identify
someone else or another organization as the owner of solutions for the
obstacles they are experiencing.
Here's the deal - any team's
level of motivation is directly proportional to the leadership's
ability to create an environment where motivation prospers. If an
organization needs to improve the motivational quotient of a team, the
process must begin with a change in the leaderships management and
communication style. This begins the positive transformation in the way
a team interacts with each other to alleviate the multiple challenges
of product development, a key step in increasing a teams drive towards
execution excellence.
The renovation of a team's dynamics to
produce a heightened enthusiasm requires concentration on three
specific management style themes - people, trust and fun. People are
the nucleus of any team, trust strengthens the conduit of information
transfer between the members and fun is the agent to enable
productivity during the tough times.
People
People
are the building blocks of a team, where no two of them are the same.
The challenge is in understanding the qualities, strengths, weaknesses
and objectives of each member and establishing project contributions
that are as close a match as possible. The better matched an
individual's project personality is to their project contribution, the
greater their level of enthusiasm and productivity towards meeting
project goals.
Emphasize the people aspects of projects and your
team will respond by providing a higher level of support and passion in
their contributions. Coaching, nurturing and training may be utilized
to expand the individuals project personality to a level that will meet
future needs; further strengthening emphasis on the people component of
an organization.
Trust
Without
first establishing trust there will be no credibility and without
credibility the team remains skeptical and unmotivated. Be real and
authentic with your team about situations as they arise - telling them
how it really is. Honesty will breed credibility. Never use "secret"
knowledge as a means to promote motivation within the team, they will
easily discern this and credibility will be damaged. Build a solid
foundation of trust and your team output will be maximized, they will
do whatever it takes for success.
Fun
Have
a good time, even in the face of significant challenges. Lighten up and
find the humor in unpleasant situations. Celebrate incremental
successes often. Play a good rousing game of Laser tag with the team
when you hit tapeout! When a team is having fun they will produce to a
higher level, always.
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Why
aren't the known Challenges Being Fixed?
I
have just compiled the results of a survey to further refine
understanding of the sources of roadblocks that new product teams
experience during execution. A second objective of the survey was to
identify the reasons that new product teams may be unable to gain the
momentum to mitigate these negative sources of project impact. Or more
simply - what prevents the known problems from being fixed. This new
survey is a follow-up to the original findings from the July 2008 survey. Click on images
for a full page view of the data.
Why don't we fix
known problems?
This
question ranked the primary reasons why known issues with project
execution were not fixed. At the top of the list was a lack of
motivation for the team to do so; the team was simply not interested in
making changes to improve. At the bottom of the list was the lack of a
real problem to be fixed.
Sources of Project
Challenges
This
question was focusing on ranking the barriers to an ideal level of
project execution. Making the top of the list as the greatest challenge
was the clarity of individual requirements; team members were not clear
on the details of their project contribution. At the bottom of the list
were design tools, indicating that the tool sets available to the team
were not a major obstacle to project execution.
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| How I
can Help
"Providing solutions to the systemic project challenges that
quietly steal early revenue opportunity"
- Discovery
& Solution -
Do you need to find and remove the the barriers to a predictable and
streamlined new product flow? Our Discovery & Solution services
provide the results you need.
- Custom Surveys
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Is there something in your organizational workflow or processes that
you need to better understand? Our custom survey services are an
economical solution to finding what you need to know.
- Process
optimization or re-engineering - Is something in your new
product workflow troubling you? I will work with your organization to
engineer a solution.
- Requirements
workshops
- I will facilitate the timely closure of a high quality set of
requirements for a specific product. If you have a complicated project
where requirements closure is critical, this would be an ideal
candidate for a workshop. More information can be found here.
- NPD team one day workshop to improve planning, execution and monitoring skills for
design projects.
- Web based NPD workflow management.
- Ready made downloads:
schedule, checklist, analog design guide.
- Increase management bandwidth via Virtual Design Manager.
- Full listing of common services here.
Contact me today via email, 480-895-0478 or
877-895-0478 |
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Feedback
To increase the value of this newsletter for you I would like
to hear your comments.
- What do you like or not like about this
newsletter?
- What subjects would you like to see covered in
the future?
- How is the format?
- Ask me a question related to new product
development and I will anonymously post and answer it here in this
section.
Please email me here with any questions,
comments or suggestions that will help me better serve my readers. I
would enjoy hearing from you.
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