We all intuitively know what team efficiency is about. When it comes to specifics, though, things get complicated. The bigger the team, the more difficult it is to make it efficient. Read on to discover nine proven ways to increase team efficiency. You will find these suggestions especially useful when working on a new digital product.
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The term “team efficiency” is strictly related to the way your team works – how it executes tasks and achieves goals. The less time, resources, and effort your team needs to do its job (without compromising quality), the more efficient it is. That’s what makes efficiency different from productivity, which is focused mainly on quantity (doing more work in the same amount of time).
An efficient product team gets the job done – the team’s focus is on work and achieving goals. In an efficient team, every member knows what they are responsible for and is engaged in doing their part of the whole. It’s easy to understand why it’s so important to increase team efficiency; this way, you can produce fully-functional products more quickly.
In this post, we will show you how to increase product team efficiency. Before we do that, though, a few valid questions need to be answered.
Why should you measure team efficiency?
Put simply, to understand how your team is doing, pinpoint potential weaknesses, and strengthen everything so that it works correctly. There are several ways of measuring team performance, and we mention crucial ones in the linked blog post. At Boldare, we believe team efficiency should be monitored continually so that you can see the patterns in the way your team works. You can use this knowledge to work on weaker points.
What influences team efficiency?
Efficiency is sensitive to many factors, both positive and negative. If you want to increase it, you need to understand those factors. Every distraction decreases efficiency. Checking social media, reading news websites, chatting with co-workers, and making drinks/snacks are just five of the top 10 most common workplace distractions (source).
Of course, we’re not trying to say that your employees shouldn’t eat snacks or chat with co-workers, but they should understand that their efficiency will go down if they devote too much time to such things.
Other things that decrease efficiency are:
- Lack of communication and feedback
- Disorganized work and lack of procedures
- Lack of priorities and clear roles (everyone does everything)
- Too many meetings
- Too many data sources
And what positively impacts the way your product or development team works? Let’s take a look at how to increase product team efficiency.
Ways to improve team efficiency and productivity
Start with a proven project management methodology
There are several methodologies you can use in your digital projects. The most popular approach is Agile and one of the best methodologies within this approach is Scrum. Discover the three pillars of Scrum and learn how to increase Scrum team productivity.
Opt for backlog refinement
This technique is primarily important in product development teams using Scrum. It’s an ongoing process that aims at ensuring the backlog contains all the necessary items (appropriately prioritized) and that the elements at the top of the backlog are ready to be delivered. Thanks to this technique, your backlog is well-organized and relevant and your team can work efficiently with all the necessary information readily available.
Ensure proper communication and provide regular feedback
Only a team that communicates regularly can be truly efficient. A lack of communication makes everything harder and more time-consuming. Thanks to well-designed communication, you ensure everyone is on the same page and the work goes in the right direction. Effective communication is particularly important when you’re managing an international team that’s spread around the world.
Clarify roles and tasks
Everyone should know what they are responsible for. Here, one-on-one meetings can be very helpful, especially at the beginning of the project. Make sure every team member gets a list of top priorities that need to be done in the first place and that they understand what the outcomes should be. Once you do that, ensure each team member has autonomy and avoid micromanagement.
71% of employees say micromanagement interferes with their job performance, and 85% report a negative impact on their morale
(source).
A spot-on definition of done
The definition of done helps your team separate things that are still in progress from things that are ready. It organizes the work and focuses attention on the outcome. The definition of done usually comprises a list of criteria that have to be completed for a product to be considered finished. Such a list can be displayed in the team room or uploaded to a shared cloud space so that everyone involved can easily get acquainted with it.
Optimize team meetings
An Atlassian study reveals that meetings can be really unproductive (source). A whopping 50% of meetings are considered wasted time. Employees also often (45% of answers) feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings they have to attend.
To avoid similar problems, limit the number of meetings and keep them as short as possible. Ensure every team session has a clear purpose and agenda (share it in advance with participants). Everything that doesn’t require a meeting should be discussed another way.
Establish one source of truth
Keeping too many data sources can bring chaos to your team’s work. Ensure there is one source of information where everyone involved can find accurate and up to date information about the product/project. An online drive with shared files is typically the best idea.
Use a project management tool and monitor the team’s progress
A project management tool is an excellent way to monitor the progress of work. With it, you can:
- Assign tasks and roles
- Plan and monitor the budget
- Allocate and manage resources
- Continually monitor work progress
- Easily share data and updates with the entire team
- Ensure seamless collaboration (the majority of project management tools come with communication features)
Some of the most useful PM tools are:
- Slack
- ClickUp
- Monday
- Asana
- Boldare Boards
Reward and praise your employees
If you want your employees to be truly engaged with their work, you have to reward them for their efforts, especially when they achieve good results. Many companies set up incentive and reward programs that help them show they value their employees’ work in a more measurable way. Here are some ideas you can consider:
- Bonuses and raises
- Paid days off
- Gift cards and vouchers
- Access to a personal development budget
Prioritize work
Don’t let everyone work on everything at the same time. Prioritize work and let every team member know what they should work on first. If your employees aren’t sure what they should concentrate on, they will quickly feel overwhelmed, and that’s a recipe for discouragement and decreased efficiency.
Don’t overdo anything
Sometimes, team managers can go overboard with tools to work with, methodologies to utilize, and supervision to apply. Too much of anything is detrimental. Once you find that perfect balance where everything works as it should, don’t try to change that by continually pushing the limits. Psychological safety is also a vital aspect of product team efficiency.
Product team efficiency is undoubtedly worth the effort
Team efficiency is not something you can achieve overnight. It takes a lot of effort and, more often than not, requires some tweaks in the way your team works and communicates. But the juice is definitely worth the squeeze. Product teams that work efficiently deliver better, more refined products, and your company doesn’t waste time on unnecessary activities.
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