The High Performance iTeam

"A good team work is an unbeatable advantage" — Anonymous

Well-structured, motivated and clear focused team can lead

enterprise IT deployment to soar new heights and get maximum return from the IT
investments and technology deployments.



But, as known widely, the enterprises are victim of high technology manpower
turnover, it is becoming a matter of great concern for CIOs to learn the tricks

for motivating and managing the enterprise IT team.

Build the commitment

Oiling and greasing the team members to understand their

wishes, expectations, and continuous reminder can play great role in driving

their efforts to concentrate for achieving the enterprise goal. The 'Success

Curve' must be drafted and aligned in a fashion that's understandable by

every teammate.

Many performance management consultants vouch for the

vitality of interpersonal relationship among teammates. Efforts to create an

environment conducive to developing and improving the interpersonal relationship

is required on continuous basis. Organizations today organize team parties and

games for developing that interpersonal relationships.

Analyzing the team goal, team strength and helping team

members to realize their individual strength, the ground rules as well as the

expectations from them to achieve the target can help create the high

performance IT team.






Improved intra-team communications




Isolated individual can lead to nowhere. Special emphasis for improving the

intra-team communications has proven advantage for keeping team members glued

together and execute task better. Listening to team members, asking good

questions, addressing the common concerns and issues can play great role in

enhanced communications.

Regular activities like team presentations, emails, humorous

and out of context discussions can help build better communication platform. The

opportunity to share the apprehensions and mistakes by team-members should be

encouraged.

Inter team communications



Many a time IT geeks develop the sense of superiority. "The finance
team is getting better increment every time due to the software we have

developed which assists them for better finance management" — A team

member lamented. But, the fact is that they are getting better increment because

they pass on transactions carefully without making mistakes.






Opportunities to help improve inter team communications should be explored. This
will help teammates understand the issues and concerns and align business goal

with IT. Many organization hosts the events where cross-functional teams are

formed and they accomplish the tasks together. This way they get closer to each

other and create better understanding and rapport.

Some of the tasks like conveying the information clearly,

platform for sharing information and quality presentation among teams can lead

towards better alignment.

The Power of Collaboration

As the adage goes 'Competition sabotages Collaboration

Prospers', every member in the organization works for achieving the enterprise

goal. The collaborated platform for team members can help faster accomplishments

of tasks at hand and sense of responsibility. 'Force Field' method can be

used for identifying the collaboration opportunities.

Decision-Making and Conflict Resolution Skills



In most of cases the decision making power is left to the team manager. The
team manager never explains the decision making tree to the members which

creates furor and inability for decision-making. To drive team members towards

high performance the following should be considered.

• Derive various decision points like buying stationary, buying accessories,
  
  buying desktops, etc.
• Identify team member to perform tasks like deriving the specification,
  
  product, supplier assessment, etc.
• Ask team member to present his findings and help him make the best
  
  decision.

This will help them develop the sense of responsibility and

empower their existence in team. Also in many conflicting situations help them

to find out the common solution together. In worst scenario, you may play a role

of guide to help derive the resolution for conflicts.

Coordination and Facilitation

The converged teammates help achieve team goal in more

focused manner than that can be achieve otherwise. The recognition and

facilitation works in great way to improve the morale of every individual and

strive them to accomplish bigger and better than what they have done.

The opportunity for recognizing and rewarding the individual

as well as team achievement and performance should be the integral part of team

as well as enterprise strategy. The evaluation method should have transparency

and un-biased approach for measuring the performance should be adhered.

In today's over stressed work scenario where IT

professionals are expected to do more, respond quickly and be at their best for

most of time requires careful evaluation and emphasis on the team management.

The IT team empowered with the vigor and eagerness to learn, leverage and lead

(3L) can certainly help organization achieve its goal and IT team to delivery

better value to the organization from IT solutions and services.