How to Organize a Team

Estimated reading time: 1 mins

Google ‘Team Management’ and ‘Organize a Team’ and we’ll find countless people telling us countless times how to do it. In my experience, it comes down to just a few simple things…

And here they are:

  1. Be clear what the objective is – share with our team the purpose of being in a team in the first place. E.g. to make our customers happy; to build a widget; to help people find stuff.
  2. Give tasks to people who are best at doing them – use people strengths. If Bill is good at communicating to customers, then give him that job. If Sharon is the best at writing reports, give her that job.
  3. Set deadlines – every task, no matter how small, must have a start time, and an end time.
  4. Set standards – every task, no matter how small, must be measurable, and the target measurement must be set, communicated and achievable.
  5. Share progress – team progress must be communicated for all to see.
  6. Have backup – if a team-member is off sick, or unavailable, someone else must be able to step in to plug the gap.
  7. Review history – we should look back, with our team, and identify what works, what doesn’t work, and learn from it.
  8. Forget job titles – job titles mean nothing if there is work to be done. Everyone in our team must feel empowered to fill gaps if they go unfilled.
  9. Define roles and responsibilities – notwithstanding point 8, lay out to our teams who is responsible for what, who is accountable, who must be informed, and who must support. If it helps, plot these in a RACI matrix.
  10. Share success – a team is a machine that depends on all its working parts, so reward must be shared across the team.

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