Paul Boag, one of the founders and directors of Headscape, once said; “We specialise in sh*t projects.”

If, like me, you run projects for a normal, every day web agency. If you do not always get the opportunity to be working with the latest cool technology or utilize the next whizz bang idea. If you don’t build sites for rock bands or the latest cool technology start-ups. How do you keep you team excited and enthusiastic about their day jobs? After all, if your team is not interested in the work that they are doing then they will not produce the high standards that you need and that they are capable of. This in turn is demotivating and you end up in a downward spiral.

How do you get your team excited about a project for brown paper bag manufacturers?

It doesn’t belong to you

The first thing to do is to promote ownership of the project within your team. Let them in on the solution. It can be tempting at times to solve (or try at least) all the problems yourself. It is much better to get your production team (designers and developers) in on the act as early as possible in the project. Do not present your designers with a list of things to do. Instead, give them a collection of problems that their design needs to solve. Do not dictate the technology that your developers must use. Instead give them the information that they need to choose the most suitable tools for the task.

Allow your team to shape the solution and they will take pride in the result. Let the project be their project. Not your project.

Express yourselves

The second thing to do is to allow your team the time and space to express themselves. Allow them to be creative; to try a new technique in a real project situation. Even if it is something very small in the grand scheme of the project it can act as the signature of your production team. This mark of ownership will inspire them to make sure that even the most mundane of projects can be the best that it can be.

Allow your techies to experiment with the new features of the latest programming language release. Allow your designers to put in that extra fun element that will only work in in the latest cool browsers. Give them the space play with a real project in a real life situation.

Using a new technique or a new technology can be enough to provoke the interest of your team. This means that the website for the brown paper bag manufacturers can be the most exciting project that you team has ever been a part of.

Slaves to the time line

Alarm bells are ringing. What about the time line! We have a deadline to meet.

And quite right too. These extra bells and whistles cannot get in the way of real targets and delivery milestones. However, if you build some time into your schedules to allow for this kind of experimentation you will have a happier, more enthusiastic and, ultimately, more productive team.

This will also encourage your team to keep developing their skill set knowing that they will get a chance to use their new found talents in real projects leading to a higher quality of work over all.

Is this something that you have tried? Or as a designer or developer have you tried to sneak little Easter Eggs into your work just to make sure that you still have a pulse at the end of the day? Let me know.

Confidence plays an important role in many areas of our lives. You will often here it said of footballer, for example, that they are a confidence player. I know from my own inability to play golf that I become marginally less rubbish if I have confidence in my next shot. Leaders who lead directly and with confidence are people that we want to follow. If you offer somebody direction, with confidence, they will, most likely, blindly follow. And the opposite is also true. Even if you know what you are talking about, if you do not present a confident argument, you will generally be ignored.

The same is true of your team. A team, full of confidence, will be more efficient at finding solutions to your problems.  If confidence is low, time will be wasted while they decide even if they can solve the issue. The idea that; there is no such thing as a problem without a solution, goes out of the window.

When a team questions their ability to solve a problem. The problem is in danger of not being solved.

Building Confidence.

It is important to be active in building the confidence of your team. This includes being on the look out for things which will damage the confidence of individuals.

1. Public praise.
   Be vocal about the successes of your team and the individuals within it. Publicise the good activity that is going on all the time. This is especially important if an individual  has been struggling for confidence. Inform other areas in the organisation of your successes. When a project is completed or an important milestone is reached, spread the word. Send an email highlighting the work and the individuals involved. Twitter is also a great tool for this and especially useful in the web world where what you are working on is often in the public domain. When your team does something well, hold it up for all to see.
2. Do not allow individuals to dominate a team.
   A certain way to knock the confidence of an individual is if they are in a team with one or two unapproachable ‘experts’ . When one member of a team is perceived to always have the best solution others will be less willing offer suggestions.  Remember, a quite individual does not equate to an incompetent individual.  It is important to build the confidence of such individuals otherwise you will lose their valuable input. If you identify this situation your can try to build their confidence and their standing within the team.  Ask them specifically for their opinion. Take them aside and seek their assessment of an issue. Public praise can also be a useful tool for individuals  as well as teams. If somebody doesn’t have the confidence to contribute then you will lose their contribution.
3. Do not set people up to fail.
   Be realistic with the challenges that you set for your team. If you consistently set an unrealistic target which ends with your team not achieving their goals, then their confidence and eventually their effectiveness will suffer. Break larger tasks into achievable chunks. Give people the opportunity to achieve something small along the way to a larger success. Failure is a demotivating experience. If it happens too often it can become habitual. Make sure that your team has a fighting chance of success. Do not set them up to fail.

A confident team is more productive. They are also more innovative in their solutions because they expect to not only achieve their goals but to excel at what they are doing.  It is important to not go too far and breed arrogance and complacency but a team of confident individuals will make your job a lot easier.

Have you had the experience of being in a team that has lacked confidence? What other ways of building the confidence of the team, or an individual, have you come across?

“I don’t know” is actually a valid answer to a problem.

“Let me think about that” is not an excuse to waste time.

“I think I should discuss this problem with my peers” doesn’t present you as incapable.

No need to be infallible

We all want to be seen in the best light. We don’t want to be seen to make mistakes. We want to be appreciated for what do. We want acknowledgement for all we put in and what we can achieve. We definitely don’t want to be seen as the weak link. We want to give an impression that we are in control and that we are ready for whatever challenge may come our way. We want people to know that they can trust us; that they can rely on us. We want to inspire confidence that we know what we are doing.

To achieve this we do not need to be infallible.  We need to be honest; with other people and ourselves.

It can be too easy to try and have an answer for everything.  If you are presented with a problem you want to solve it quickly. Most problems that come up in my world as a web project manager do not have instant answers and I’m typically very suspicious of off the cuff solutions.  When I pose a problem to my team I would expect an answer that is something along the lines of; “Give me some time to consider that” or “I’m not sure, there could be several solutions, let me do some thinking and research”.

Similarly, in an environment of peers, if you don’t know how something works, ask your team mates. Share the knowledge around. It’s sounds obvious but many people are too afraid of what people my think of them if they ask a seemingly obvious question.

Honesty is just fine

Acknowledging areas of weakness or gaps in understanding, far from creating a negative picture you, will actually increase your standing with people around you. Understanding who you are and what you can (and can’t) do is a sign of strength. It will produce self confidence which others will feed off. And if you can pin point the areas where you need to improve then you are in a much stronger position to do something about them. People around you will recognise this and therefore have more confidence in you.

A quick answer that,  further down the road, proves to not the be the best solution, causes problems. It might make you appear to be on top of your game at that moment in time but it will leave people with less confidence in you in future. However, a more considered approach, which yields good results, leaves everybody with greater confidence in your ability. It will breed trust.

Fear can be a big issue; both for team members and team leaders. We are afraid to appear weak, or slow, or unreliable. We are concerned that our boss or our peers will think we do not know what we are doing.

It’s worth remembering that asking questions and saying, “I don’t know”, are not a sign of weakness. In fact, they are a sign of strength.

It’s very easy to indentify when something is wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small one person task or a large project being undertaken by a whole team of people, finding issues is normally…  no, I would say, always possible; even easy to do. By spotting a problem you are nothing new. You are not doing anything different you do not stand out in any way. Solutions on the other hand are a rare commodity.

During my spell as the technical team lead at Headscape I tried to install something of a motto into the team. “Everything is possible, there is always a way.” And a few variations on that theme. When a project manager, or a client would approach me with a new piece of functionality or a new project or even just the beginnings of a new idea I tried to always approach it from the point of view that whatever they were asking for was possible to achieve. It was my job / my teams job to find the solution.

It sounds quite obvious really. We are a “solutions” business. Our job is essentially to solve our clients problems (even if they don’t see it that way). But this is not a concept that everyone has grasped. I’ve been involved in a number of teams who almost seemed to pride themselves on indentifying why a particular request wasn’t possible or was a silly idea.  Often talking themselves out of work in the process. In fact, thinking about it now, I wonder if that was the aim of the exercise. *smile*

Now I’m involved in project management I don’t want to hear about problems. Problems don’t help me. I want to hear about solutions.  Obviously there are often many issues with a particular request or piece of work. I’m not suggesting we just run along like a collection of blind robots and try to implement any idea that comes our way. But rather than just listing all the reasons why a given piece of functionality is a silly idea, think it through and offer an alternative solution.

If you approach every situation “knowing” that everything is possible and that there is always a solution then, in my experience, you will find it. And in a room full of people who are very capable of, and often very eager to, point out the issues you will stand out as the person who offers solutions.

It is very easy to find problems. The key is to find the solutions.

It’s good to get things off your chest. Inevitably, during the course of a project things will annoy you. A customer will insist on something stupid, a college will make a hash of something which will add to your work load, a member of your team will do something daft and you will have to pick up the pieces, you will release that you had not thought something through or that you have cut a corner to save time and it’s made everything take three times as long as it should.

It happens. But how you deal with these situations will have a big impact on, not only your project, but your general state of mind too.

A wise man once said

There is an old proverb that goes something like this; “don’t let the sun go down on an argument”. This is good advice; not only for the sake of the relationship involve but also because we all know that you generally feel better when the air is cleared. The same principle needs to be applied here.

There may not have been an actual argument or disagreement but somehow somebody has gotten under your skin and you can feel the tension and frustration building. Of course, it is not always appropriate to ‘have it out’ with the person involved. After all, an offended client is likely to only make your situation worse. A disgruntled team member is not really very likely to up their game either. And after all, your boss may just fire you *smile*.

Get it all out

However, you need to do something. If you are getting increasingly frustrated and don’t have a vent then your productivity, creativity, and general happiness will very quickly hit a downward curve.

At Headscape; amongst the Project Managers at least, we have the concept of the rant line. Essentially, when  something has ‘gotten our goat’ we can call one of the other PM’s and rant.  It’s great! It makes you feel so much better.

This is an informal, and somewhat tongue in cheek, arrangement but it is a concept that is worth considering.

Some organisations have a more formal system. The idea of ‘buddies’, or some sort of mentoring or accountability. The system is tweaked to the situation but the idea is the same. A safe place to unload, without fear of reprisals. To be open and honest. To clear the air when there is no other sensible outlet.

If you let such frustrations build up; your project suffers, your team suffers, and ultimately, you suffer. So don’t let things get you down. Call the rant line! *smile*

If you have ever wondered why your team is what it is, then it is possible that you should look no further. Just like children often pick up traits, characteristics, and mannerisms of their parents, and “best friends” will find that they think and behave alike, teams will often take on the personality and ethos of their leader.

This is obviously a big generalisation but it is very useful to remember if you are in leadership of some form. The team leader sets the culture of team as a whole. If the dominate characteristic of the team leader is that they are competitive, then do no be surprised if you end up with a team that is guarded about their knowledge and skills and individuals are more interested in proving themselves than cooperating for the greater good. If the team lead is a joker then expect a “playful” environment in the team. If the team lead is reserved and quite…. You get the idea.

The point is that if you not happy about a particular part of your teams culture then the first place to look is at yourself! Your personality; your ethos, will be imprinted on the teams that you lead. This is also worth remembering, if you are a new leader of an established team and wonder why things are as they are. Finding out a little about your predecessor might be a useful exercise in understanding what might be involved in taking your team forward.

The ‘Super Hero’ Legacy

I found a good example of this in a previous post. The lead of the team I was in had set themselves up as something of a superhero. Everything they did was correct, every solution was as elegant and effeiciate as it could possibly be. And, of course, mixed in with the perfect amount of flair. They never had a question, they never had a doubt, they always had an answer. The end result was a team who were afraid to ask questions for fear of looking foolish and not appearing good enough to be a part of the super heros team. Team members were not very good at sharing experience and knowledge as the assumption was that eveybody already had the knowledge, else, how would they possible be in this “super team”.

This culture had been set as an unconscience response and reacation to the personality and ethos of the team lead. This was important to understand if any atempt to change this culture could be successful.

If you want to develop an area of your teams life then the first place to look is how you operate as an individual. There is no point in expecting an open working environment, with the free sharing and exchange of ideas, if you are less than transparent in what you do yourself. 

A major part of the role of a team leader is to set the culture of team. This is done not only by what you say, not even only by want you do, but also, who you are.