Team Building exercises for tense situations 3

[jancebk]

Hello:

I am managing a team of several technical people on a technical software development project. This is a new project, only a few weeks into it, and there are already personality conflicts developing. (Egos clashing... you know the drill....)

I'd like suggestions for some team building exercises that we can do in our team meetings that only take 15 minutes or so, but are fun, get to know each other types of exercises that help relieve the tension so we can get back to dealing with the project!

Thank you in advance for your time!
Jan

 

[cabeluto]

If the team is big, bring all them to a classroom.
You can ask people to join in pairs or trios and write on a big sheet of paper about the other person in the same group. Then, the people who wrote (if it is a pair), or the people who observed (in case of a trio), will talk to the rest of the components of the team about the people wich they wrote about.

It´s funny, and "break the ice" between people

 

[cjowsey]

I would start by looking at the issue from a different angle. That is, whether you have the right project structure and resource base.

Are the people being "difficult" because they are under-utilised or overworked? If people do not have clear and achievable challenges they will get bored or frustrated and most will not be able to articulate the cause of their problems.

Are there bottlenecks in the project structure that are causing some people to experience frustration by making it difficult to accomplish tasks or creating delays? And are the standard processes and structures on the project well defined and clearly explained to everyone? If, for example, your quality process requires a code review but the coding standards are not well written and understood or if the process focuses on the individual who has written the code rather than the code itself, there is a clear opportunity to improve things and get the personalities focused on the job. I am not saying there is a problem with your quality process, this is just an example.

Have you done a skills analysis (it doesn't have to be formal and overly structured) to ensure that your team have the skills to do the jobs required of them and that they are not working at too high or too low a level for their abilities? In these tough times there are some very experienced people doing jobs at a much lower level than they have done for a long time. This can cause problems if they think they are still senior decision makers.

Are inexperienced team members getting appropriate mentoring and guidance to help them pick up speed?

Is your architecture and overall design documented and accepted by the project team? It can be very negative to have a person on the project not knowing why they are doing a task or convinced that they are building something that will not work properly.

Is your project schedule aggressive but achievable? Nobody is going to do their best work if told they have to run 1500m in two minutes. Likewise, if told to run 1500m in 15 minutes, they won't try hard enough.

Are you in control of all the processes and resources on the project? If you have a dependency on an external group or person, this can cause a lot of problems if they don't deliver on time or to the defined level of quality.

I am not downplaying team building. I think it is an essential part of running a successful project and in my experience, a team that bonds well will produce excellent results.

There are plenty of things you can do with a team that don't neccessarily involve taking the team to the pub and getting them drunk. You can have occasional meetings at a local coffee shop; have a cooking competition (a different person has to bring some home made product to the team meeting each week); institute a series of fines and rewards for trivial and fun activities (for example anyone wearing a blue shirt on Wednesdays has to pay a forfeit).

There are lots of things that you can do like that to get people having fun together, but the first place that I would be looking is at the structure of the project.

Cheers,
Clive

 

[glynis]

One of the best team exercises i can remember was to get each person to write 3 things about themselves that none of the team would know.
This is usually done on flip charts.
Once the team returns they all have to guess who the team menber is by looking at the evidence.
Its possible to find out quite a lot about people in this exercise.

And its fun too.

Don't worry too much about ego's etc its path of the course in project situations.Everyone should be equal in a project situation but that rarely happens it success of the project is more important than bruised ego's

 

[mbuell]

While those posed "situation" exercises are sometimes helpful, I've always HATED their artificiality and contrived qualities, AND I find their usefullness limited by those qualities.

I like the answer that talked about skills eval, but that is less help immediately. The answer I often get back to is the rule of thumb, 'the team that can laugh together can work together'. The best team-building exercises that I've ever found were simple, like monthly office potlucks, or monthly lunch-outs. If someone is just in a bad mood that day, they can bow out, but the door is still open next time. The key is allowing democratic choice (that's why the potluck). Also key is relaxed, non-work face time.

Team-building exercises are valuable in emergency situations, but should be run by a professional, not internally. If you run it and it doesn't work, things may get much worse.

Mark
<O>
_|_

 

[wlbond008]

When in the military we used to have a &quot;NCO Call&quot; on Friday afternoons. Bosses would buy a round(I know not Politically correct) but one round and let your people know you are there for them and really care. Do NOT put up with backstabbers and cut-throats! Two jobs back I have a coworker that had a habbit of &quot;Bushwacking individuals&quot; ( she would change a document 2 minutes before a meeting and then ask people about the new updated material in front of the boss). Three people including myself just packed up and left after we went to the boss and showed him the times she was making changes...and he still told us we should have &quot;Kept yourselves up-to-date&quot;.