What is team management?
Teamwork involves a group of people coming together, making decisions and working toward a common goal. Everyone in the team has a responsibility to deliver and help keep the team on track.
Managing a team is tough and requires strong leadership. Team management refers to the techniques involved in leading a group of individuals and helping them to accomplish their tasks. Team management involves:
Communication management.
Goal setting.
Delegation.
Team performance management.
Conflict management.
Strong team management skills can keep your team motivated and help them succeed. Effective team management brings your team together to perform at their best. As a manager, knowing why team management is important can help you uncover areas for improvement. The bonus? A well managed team will showcase your strong leadership.
How to manage a team: 6 tips for success
Why is effective team management important? Let’s break it down. Here are our top six tips for building a team that is happier and more productive:
1. Be transparent
Work environments built around transparency and accountability bring teams closer together. They inspire trust in the leadership, encourage openness and collaboration and enable faster problem solving. With open and consistent communication, your team will feel secure in a safe space for them to contribute ideas and be creative.
Marc de Grandpre, Senior VP of Marketing at KIND Healthy Snacks, agrees that transparency and authenticity in the workplace are hugely important. He says:
Managing a team transparently
It’s not always easy to establish the clear roles and responsibilities needed to make a transparent team. To solve this, team management consultant James Hannam uses MeisterTask. The tool’s shared project boards help maintain a clear overview of projects and responsibilities:
“If all of your team members can have a high level of visibility over the project, while also understanding the part they are playing at any given time, you will foster a sense of responsibility, creating accountability among team members.”
Each task within a project is assigned to a specific team member, making everyone’s responsibilities clear. This also enables team members to understand their contribution to the bigger picture.
2. Keep communication flowing
Communication is the secret to making sure your team gets the job done. You should aim to create an environment in which team leaders can provide honest, constructive feedback. Team members should feel comfortable voicing concerns and communicating with one another.
Build team management skills
Managing a team means building teamwork culture. This is a core team management skill that you’ll need to develop. As teamwork depends on communication, give your team the tools they need to work together. For example, Google Meet is an ideal way to ensure some crucial facetime.
Is your distributed team working across time zones? Schedule a time that works for everyone. Being considerate will keep your team members happy, which means they’ll be more open to communicating honestly and freely.
Slack is another communication tool popular with many businesses. It’s a great way to slash email traffic and still enable your team to communicate effectively. Slack is built for collaboration and can help to promote a positive and friendly working culture.
3. Provide regular feedback
Providing feedback to team members is one of the best ways you can help them to develop. Jean-François Manzoni, Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD International, explains:
“You do your star a disservice if you fail to help her figure out how she can continue to grow.”
Check in with your team regularly. This allows you to assess how your team members are progressing – and help them find ways to grow. If you identify areas for improvement, it’s a good opportunity to share constructive feedback.
Giving feedback can be difficult, but it’s an essential part of effective team management. Freelance writer and iOS developer Belle Beth Cooper has some great advice on how to manage a team and give effective feedback. She says:
“If you’re finding a conversation difficult or nerve-wracking, remember that your aim in providing feedback is to help your team members succeed and grow.”
The ability to give feedback is another team management skill you’ll need to work on. The success of your team depends on it.
4. Encourage collaboration
Inevitably, your team members will be happier if they can get along well with one another. As an added bonus, they’ll perform better too.
To achieve a good balance, encourage your team to embrace creative collaboration. Make the most of team members’ different skill sets by ensuring everyone is aware of ongoing projects. That way, team members can jump in to collaborate wherever they feel they can bring value.
Tools for effective team management
Getting your team on the same page is easier said than done. A collaborative task management tool can help the process by visualizing upcoming tasks for each team member. That way, everyone knows who’s doing what and when. MeisterTask makes it easy by centralizing all the important information on Kanban-style boards that allow you to track team progress at a glance.
For a less linear approach, try using a collaborative online mind map. With MindMeister, multiple users can access mind maps at the same time, meaning team members can add their ideas, give feedback or vote up or down on ideas. This can all be done in real time, whether brainstorming in a meeting or working entirely remotely.
5. Trust your team
Companies hire competent staff for a reason and effective team management shouldn’t mean micromanagement. Managing a team means you need to know when to leave people to do their job. After all, you hired them for their specialist skills.
Managing a team: why delegation matters
Sometimes it can be hard to let go. Especially if you’ve been working on a project for a while and then need another team member to step in. How do you stay in the loop without micromanaging? A task management tool lets you track task status and project progress. MeisterTask allows you to become a Task Watcher, enabling you to keep an eye on tasks and only get involved if you need to.
By allowing watchers to keep an eye on progress, you can trust your team to get on with their tasks or projects alone. You can still jump in to ask questions or give support when needed.
Track team performance with Reports
As a manager, you need a clear overview of how projects are progressing. Using a task management tool adds a statistics-driven element to team management.
Find out how you can use MeisterTask to measure and continuously improve team performance.
MeisterTask’s reports feature allows you to gain valuable insight into performance through analytics. From predefined or custom reports, data can be exported as an Excel spreadsheet (XLS) or CSV file and shared.
You can also use time tracking to keep a record of time spent on a task. MeisterTask’s built-in tracker is perfect for monitoring team performance.
6. Prevent team burn-out
As a team leader, you can set positive boundaries and ensure a good work-life balance for your team. Of course, this can be difficult – particularly in teams where employees work flexibly and might prefer to start early or work late.
In her article on managing work notifications, Belle Beth Cooper argues that it’s up to team leaders to make sure everyone switches off from work. One way is to help them to manage their notifications better.
Encouraging team members to set boundaries and avoid burn-out is important. This is where using a task management tool can help. It allows you to choose which notifications you receive. If you’re using MeisterTask and business communication tool Slack, you can choose to only receive a Slack notification on your laptop if you’ve been mentioned in a task.
Now you’re all set to master effective team management by building workflows that support your team and help them to accomplish more. Try out our top 6 tips for managing a team and reap the rewards of more effective collaboration. Good luck!
