Team Management
(need to summarise)
How to manage a team well
Good team management checklist [Doc]
Preferred Methods of Internal and External Communication
Shaun R:
Internally
Slack: running commentary
semi asynchronous. You can tell someone something immediately.
Face-to-face. Be cognizant that they might be working
Phone calls, WhatsApp
Externally
Email: in the beginning, bc people are most comfortable with that.
Phone calls: if they’re a long term partner, try to bring them into Slack.
For a month long project, probably just emails.
Adrian K:
Externally, we should be leaning, as far as possible, into in-person meetings. Or at least, through telephone
In OpenUp, we’re quite reluctant to use telephone
When it comes to just picking up a telephone, I think sometimes, that just helps a lot more.
Jen W:
J: Um, what are we communicating? Anything?
K: So you say it depends on what you’re communicating-
J: Yeah.
K: -then y’know; you’d speak to the public differently than you’d speak to your OpenUp team, or your Wazimap team. Right?
J: Yup. And also, internally, is it a company update in terms of how we’re tracking, or y’know, what the next quarter looks like? Or is it just a note, going forward, saying- I dunno, “we’re not going to be using the coffee machine downstairs?” It really depends, to me, on what needs to be communicated.
Team Management During Projects That Call For External Collaboration
There are many ways to handle cross-organization team management. Typically, work happens in-parallel- a project manager/lead will handle OpenUp’s side of things, and vice-versa with the entity we’re collaborating with. Each company’s project lead/project manager handles and oversees their own staff.
Interactions throughout the duration of the project. Communication is conducted between the project leads, each of whom might work individually with different companies, organizations, and corporations in order to meet the prescribed project goals.
Internal systems are used to engage with the team and push projects forward. Every person &/or entity we work and associate with outside of OpenUp is usually under contract. These contracts determine a budget and a reporting process; they outline the terms and the timeline of what the associate agreed to produce. Throughout the whole spectrum, communication remains key to meeting deadlines and producing deliverables.
Jen W: Internal team members- and that’s a distinction I would make in this case- would be people actually implementing the project. Implementation for me is very much technical...my products are mostly software development.
So it’s about managing an internal team, and that’s where Trello becomes my source of truth...I don’t do standups anymore. What I do...alright, so maybe just to contextualize; currently my Wazimap team consists of two offshore developers, working in different timezones: Adi, myself, and Matt. So we all use Trello and a Slack channel to do all of our communication, clarification, as well as prioritization.
Shaun R: But I think the best way to do it is to itemize tasks, so this needs to be done by when and by whom. That’s one of the practices that I always do. You’ve probably seen that in the Sprint plans that I’ve put together.
What are the tasks that need to be done?
Who is going to do it?
Who is responsible for it?
When does it need to be done by?
I think that’s just a good way of basically making it clear to everyone what needs to happen, so that you don’t have to micromanage, especially when it's across organizations or across companies.
One more thing is making yourself available to people at the other organization or company, if they need help from you.
Onboarding
Has everyone on the project team been onboarded?
Do contractors need to be onboarded?
See detailed onboarding information here.
Outsourcing & Contracting
See Outsourcing & Contracting.
Meetings
How to call a meeting:
Don't call a meeting if the same result could be achieved with an email (or another less-intensive action).
Add meetings to your Google Calendar and invite all participants
Every meeting should have an agenda - circulate as far at least a day in advance along with any reading necessary material
Make the meeting default length 30 minutes, and increase or decrease as needed
Stick to your time limits!
Keep minutes of your meeting
Every meeting should produce a list of next actions and the people responsible for that work
You may want to decide when the next meeting will be
Circulate minutes and action list to all participants afterwards
Keep a record of the minutes and action lists in the appropriate project folder
You can find a template for taking minutes and next actions here.
Read more on how to get the best out of meetings here.
Communication
Frequency
I have no idea! May need to find some good resources on this.
Slack
Email
Meetings/Face-to-face
Don't call meetings for meetings sake. Meetings are a planning and communication tool but they should not be mistaken for work. Below is a list of good reasons to call a meeting.
If you can justify it in a sentence "I need X from Y!"
If you need consensus (for something serious)
If it’s a long and important project - you will need to meet for initial planning, as well as at key stages along the way
If you’re managing people -
If you have an important client -
To achieve clarity - use bullet #1, what do you need clarity on?
When the problems are adding up -
If there is an emergency -
Phone calls
WhatsApp & Other Message Services
Social Media
Task lists & workflow
Features and outputs (tracking via Trello - create a template project board)
Stages and deliverables
Tracking time with Clockify
Feedback, Review, and Reporting
Monthly report [Doc]
Retros
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