🚀 Why the Ways We Work Together Matter

10 Steps to Align, Share and Succeed as a Team

Dec 08, 2022

I thrive off creativity, but process makes it possible for my creativity to thrive. This is an article about my lessons learned from creating project processes over the years.

The ways we work are equally as important as the work we lead. With proper processes in place, teams can align, share and succeed together. When projects launch, employees or customers see the final result. What happens to get us to that moment is a lot like preparing for another type of launch — a space shuttle launch.

The Space Camp alumna in me vividly remembers the moment when I learned about all of the people who make critical contributions for the astronauts to lift off safely and successfully — mathematicians, engineers, technicians, designers, pilots, researchers, mission control, fight-control, payload operations and more. Together, they make one major moment possible. There’s a lot we can learn from these teams for the ways we work.

With this collaborative approach in mind, I outlined 10 processes to align, share and succeed as a team — whether you are launching a project internally or externally.

10 Ways We Work Together

😇 Share Your Story
📜 Establish a Team Charter
📐 Define The Project, Roles and Responsibilities
🗄️ Create a Shared Workspace
📝 Set up Project Management System
📣 Facilitate Effective Meetings
📖 Templatize Nearly Everything
📩 Establish Reporting Process
⏱️ Save Time to Reflect and Debrief
🙏🏼 Express Appreciation

😇 #1 Share Your Story

Different personalities and working styles make each of us unique and interesting as colleagues. Projects should begin by outlining everyone’s stories. To avoid speed bumps, let others know the ways you prefer to work for smooth feedback, internal communications and collaboration. Author Adam Bryant wrote about this strategy, which he refers to as a “User Manual” in his former New York Times’ Corner Office column where he interviewed Ivar Kroghrud about his leadership style as former CEO:

“I’ve always been struck by this sort of strange approach that people take, where they try the same approach with everybody they work with. But if you lead people for a while, you realize that it’s striking how different people are — if you use the exact same approach with two different people, you can get very different outcomes. So I tried to think of a way to shorten the learning curve when you build new teams and bring new people on board.
The worst way of doing it — which is, regrettably, the normal way — is that people just go into a new team and start working on the task at hand, and then spend so much time battling different personalities without really being aware of it. Instead, you should stop and get to know people before you move forward. Some of this comes from the experience I had in the Norwegian Navy.”

Take a moment to consider — what would you want your colleagues to know about you before you begin working together? Perhaps what inspires you at work, how you like to start your day, what makes you feel valued and what drives you bonkers? Write it down and share it with your colleagues. Save the story of you in an open and accessible shared location so anyone from the team can refer back to them in the future.

There are several great templates as resources. Atlassian helps you “get to know your teammates and how to effectively work with them by sharing user manuals, which include communication preferences and more” with templates from their tools. Liz and Mollie, the authors of “No Hard Feelings” offer several key questions to consider.

📜 #2 Establish a Team Charter

Organizations set values, and teams can take that one step further with a charter defining the ways they work together. In this guide from project management leader Asana, take a look at why you should create a charter:

“Your team is like carefully placed dominos. You can mix and match skill sets to build something special, but when one person wobbles, everyone feels it. Teams require positive synergy to withstand challenges and produce great results. One way to spark synergy is with a team charter. Team charters are a communal reference that show your team that the whole is greater than the individual.”

When crafting a charter, invite feedback from everyone so they feel invested in it, discuss it, adjust it and finalize it. Again, remember to save it in a shared place so that everyone can know what drives your team. Better yet, keep your employee stories of what inspires and drives us in the same spot. Consider having these resources at the top of your meeting notes doc to remind you to look at them frequently.

📐#3 Define The Project, Roles and Responsibilities

Before diving into a project, it’s crucial to define what you will be working on as well as who will be supporting its success. Begin by outlining your objective(s), deliverables, deadlines and what defines impact. From there, decide who does what — the roles and responsibilities. This enables teams to divide and conquer as well as tap into everyone’s superpowers for the best results.

Ensuring managers and leadership are aligned, in particular, on decision-making, will influence the project’s success. There are many strategies for accomplishing this and one of the most popular is a RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. After the project manager has identified specific people for each of the roles and level of involvement, post this information as a central resource. Here’s a guide from Asana to defining the RACI:

R = Responsible. This person performs the work. There should only ever be one Responsible per task, so everyone on the team knows who to go with for questions and updates.
A = Accountable. This person is responsible for approving the work and will likely be a manager.
C = Consulted. This person should give input on the work. This could be a team member or someone on another team.
I = Informed. This person should be informed of the progress and the outcome of the work, but they don’t give input on the work as it’s being performed.

🗄️ #4 Create a Shared Workspace

How many times have you or a team member asked this question — “where’s that doc?” Chances are that it has happened quite frequently. According to research from McKinsey, “the average office employee spends 1.5 hours a day (6 weeks per year) looking for things.”

That’s why it’s so important to save group documents in a shared drive. Set this up from the start so that no one is creating docs in their personal drive — it’s harder to find those items. Create folders that are clearly organized and ensure everyone is aware of the naming system so that it’s easy to find information and no one is asking for requesting access to docs all the time.

It is also helpful to link the tasks in your project management system with the corresponding docs so that everything is easy to find.

📝 #5 Set up a Project Management System

With so many ways of communicating — docs, sheets, work chats, video calls, and more, teams need a way to bring all of this together and keep everyone aligned on timelines and deliverables. That’s where project management systems come into place so that statuses and owners are clearly defined.

There are many tools out there to choose from — find the simplest and most affordable one that works for you and set up your system. There might be hesitation to using a tool, but hold firm, it will transform how you work. Train those who are skeptical and empower them as your partners.

📣 #6 Facilitate Effective Meetings

“15% of an organization’s time is spent in meetings,”

This continues to increase according to a report by Otter.ai — an artificial intelligence-powered note-taking and collaboration app that lets you remember, search and share your voice conversations.

With so much time in meetings, it’s important to plan for them by defining a purpose, sharing pre-reading materials, creating an agenda, defining decisions, tracking action items and establishing follow-up processes. Last year, I published this guide to Making Meetings Matter with 11 suggestions for successful meetings. Here’s another great resource from First Round Review.

📖 #7 Templatize Nearly Everything

While I’m a big fan of doing work differently than it has been done before, I believe most of that time should be spent thinking and creating rather than getting stuck in the methods of process. When I find a great system for working through a project, I turn it into a template for the future. Templates help simplify your methods for managing projects, calendars, presentations and more. The familiarity makes it easy to review and move forward with the important work.

Creating templates makes work more efficient. While you can create your own, there are many great options that are available for free for you to customize. Take a look at Hypercontext’s 90+ Free Agenda Templates for Better Meetings, Canva’s Business Presentation Templates or Lenny Rachitsky’s Newsletter which offers his favorite product management templates, that are relevant to other industries.

📩 #8 Establish Reporting Processes

With projects, it’s essential to report updates and remind everyone of deadlines and decisions to be made at a specific cadence — typically weekly works best, but it depends on your project. Before you begin reporting, align on the preferred format

Find a way to share these reports that provide a high-level overview and call out the assigned action items without taking too much time. Ideally, you’ll lean on your project management tool to make these reports. Here are a few templates to learn from — Asana, Atlassian and Figma.

Consider where these reports should be shared — as an email or in a more interactive format such as a chat tool where employees can engage and ask questions. Reference them in meetings to keep everyone aware of progress.

⏱️ #9 Save Time to Reflect and Debrief

Before jumping into the next project, make the time to decompress, reflect and debrief. Give yourself time to celebrate and step away from the project for a fresh perspective — take a nice walk or enjoy a special event with the team (virtually or in-person).

Then, start listing what you are proud of and what could have gone better. Invite feedback from others, either anonymously, individually or in a group setting (but beware of the group-think conundrum where everyone might say the same response because that’s the popular opinion).

Gather all the inputs, including metrics, and write an internal reflection. Share it with your project partners as well as others to help them learn and grow from the experience. Then, you’re ready to move forward. Don’t forget to consult this guide next time you start a project so you’re prepared.

🙏🏼 #10 Express Appreciation

Finally and most importantly, remember to thank everyone for their partnership. Say thank you individually and as a group. Recognition is a very meaningful way to appreciate people for doing great work and going above and beyond. I wrote about the ways to say thank you all year long in this article.

Expressing appreciation can also strengthen motivation in the workplace according to research by Harvard Business Review. For major projects, consider a small gift of thanks for the key partners — a $5 gift card for a cup of coffee or tea can go a long way.

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