Team Dynamics in Delivery Success

As Aldous Huxley penned¹, “We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into".”  NASA or ISRO would be just a garage of high end technology equipment if people don’t work with them to place a satellite in to its respective orbital. When people with different cultural and behavioral backgrounds are deployed in to a group with size spanning form 2 to 2ⁿ, with a collaborative effort the single lined objective is achieved to benefit the client. It’s the people working in teams to achieve things.

The changing aspects in one team will definitely impact the appearance of the organization in front of the client at some instance in the business world. Letdown situations in the project delivery do not necessarily happen due to resource attrition or bad knowledge management process, the interaction among the team members is one of the key causes. In a delivery project, every team member should leverage his/her leadership skills and the respective leader’s encouragement boosts the motive.

Frequent “Powerful conversations” with the team allows them to understand the team’s vision and goals; transparent ‘recognition and escalation’ progressions build the trust in the team members that leadership pay attention to the details of the facts.

These few pages attempt to voice some of the key aspects that could change the team’s empathy towards the project goals and expectation from the leadership and vice versa.

Where Does the Beauty Lie?

A happy employee always spreads positive dynamism about the team, open to share the knowledge, collaborate with other team members, and never-mind to stretch beyond typical working hours. In the recent times, one of my close colleagues has moved to another organization. In his Adios mail, he mentioned the below lines for his manager:

“Dear Gordan (Masked), you are the best supervisor so far in my career. The confidence you have put in me, the freedom you gave me, the support you’ve provided me enabled me to experiment in my day-to-day work and succeed. Thank you so much.”

Yes, the splendor is in one frame when the supervisor understands the capability of his/her team members and gives them what they want to deliver their best.

Equally, Appreciations like the following accolade with details from a senior manager to his team member build the approachability to involve in additional project activities.

“David (Masked) worked as the Proposal Architect on the DiaClient (Masked) Consolidation Proposal, on which I was the End to End Solution Architect. In the end, we were able to provide a very good/high quality response to DiaClient, and positive feedback on the strength received from the client themselves, and this was to a large extent dependent on the excellent work that David was able to deliver. I see David’s skill, Make sense of what is being orally communicated and translate that into high quality content in the response. Being very diligent in completion of work within timelines and being able to stretch as needed.”

A team member has tried to step in to the shoes of such senior resources to understand what client is looking for and communicating in an apt way to deliver what he could deliver. And here I conclude, the beauty lies between the freedom and support the resource gets from the leadership and the responsibility the team member demonstrates.

Work Life Balance (WLB)

One of the ironic incidents: a professional writer was not able to have WLB for four months when he was authoring his latest edition on WLB.

Once a manager said in an open house with his team: respect your family; we may have a back up to deliver this project but only you can justify your presence with family. Powerful Conversations³ help the team that leadership respects team’s personal life.

Why Transparency in the Team?

Transparency helps project teams to put everyone on the same page. When a new team member couldn’t gel with the existing team, it is important to bring every team member to single page by making role of the new team member clear to erase the distrust for whatever reason it has caused. Always Boss is happy to see a loyal project status report from the team as it impacts the client’s view on the organization; and the team is happy for equal opportunities and transparent recognition from the boss; Another example for “Give and Give” dogma.

Mutual Empathy among Team Members

This builds the candid relationship among the team members and the above mentioned WLB is linked with this. Could be a replacement for some time or help provide to reach the project deadlines. Understanding and empathy among team members could help the project to achieve the objectives.

In respect of WLB and the employees’ freedom more companies are experimenting with the traditional two-week vacation policies. Some are implementing unlimited paid time off. Others take it a step further, offering vacation bonuses to entice their employees to get some rest. Subscription video service Netflix was one of the first companies to offer its employees unlimited paid vacation as long as they got their work done. FullContact, which provides cloud-based contact management for individuals and businesses, offers "paid paid vacation." Once a year, employees get $7,500--about what it would cost for a family of four to travel somewhere tropical--to go on vacation. The stipulations: They must actually go on vacation, disconnect and not work.⁴

Team Bonding Off Workplace

After dancing for a couple of hours during a team outing, the dialogue between the boss and team crafts a bond that empathies to know better people than work place individuals. Repeated team building vacation and activities in parallel with Project Review Meetings benefit the team for personal bonding.

Conclusion

Teams which do not ignore team dynamics apply the principles of Mutual respect and reasonable time off result in building team synergy and increases performance. It is necessary to understand a good team environment is influenced by the unconscious minds of the team members. The loss of skilled resources could be avoided by timely Team Health Checks⁵ and right recognition to the right person at the right time. Reciprocated Empathy among team members across globally distributed teams helps them receive the required deliverables on time. In a team when multiple levels and roles are to be managed, success lies in handling the roles of team member and a team leader at the same time.

References

¹ The Doors of Perception is a short book by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1954

² http://quotes.lifehack.org/quote/mahatma-gandhi/all-compromise-is-based-on-give-and/

³ Powerful Conversations: How High-Impact Leaders Communicate by Philip J. Harkins McGraw Hill Professional, 1999

⁴ http://www.forbes.com/pictures/lmj45kdld/the-new-vacation-policies/

⁵ http://stellarleadership.com/docs/Team%20Working/assessment/Team%20Health%20Check.pdf

Realization

Two little hands; aged two to three years; could have been kissed a thousand times a day and taken care a million times better than the state they are in now, I see. One piece of baby pink cloth, torn from weeks, and the baby is wearing it and walking on the footpath to reach a bus stop. She doesn’t know her state and situation and thus she showers her innocent smile and asks for money. Doesn’t matter whose picture and the number that’s been on that piece of paper; it feeds her if she gives it to her parents. A hundred feet distance from the bus stop, a tent I could see with that baby’s family; selling some medicine bottles claiming they made it from precious roots.

I believe every life (in any form) has a role and responsibility on this earth. Even chicken finishes its responsibility being fed to humans. I wondered and asked myself, in such a busy world, who would have the time to think of something that does not give them back something quantifiable. When breathing, drinking, and eating are possible only if one has money, help; from whom we get? It would have been a simple world if helping others is not expensive.

Every living form on the Earth is thriving for one thing; Bloodline continuity. Not the blood continuity, but their own bloodline. Every human is sourcing the bread/cash for their successors; hoping their saving would be utilized? Why aren’t they spending it NOW? One sure question you will face if you ask this to anyone who is earning more than you. Are you crazy/ it’s a competitive world.

While eating, one will never think how hungry he/she was. It’s the same for love and help too. Once help/love is been received, they forget how empty their hands and hearts were. No one has time to think from where we have come and where do we have to go after this body is done with Earth.

What is our condition to say we’re good; earning and keep ourselves healthy? If you do things to keep you happy, how is it good? Good is something you do to others. In line with it, love too. When someone asks how we are doing, we say undoubtedly I’m good or I’m doing good or I’m being good. Next time, think once.

IPL 5 - Whatta Business Strategy (Just My View)

Indian Premier League, very well known to the world as IPL - Looks like an amalgamation of foreign players with Indian Cricket Team and Local players to provide the audience, a good cricket. But it is not only a mix of players across the globe but it has a mix of proper business strategy to it.

IPL has been started and executed in India successfully since 2008. But this season (IPL5) has some interesting facts. E.g. the ticket prices are higher than before still the stadiums are using their Houseful boards and the amount of entertainment audience getting is relatively more than their previous experiences.

It all starts from the auctioning of players. I found it similar to campus placement jobs for fresh college outcomes. Owners of each team (preferably celebrities with lots of money) will have access to the CVs (records of past performances) of players and they chose the best (that’s what the owners think) team members from opening batsmen to tail enders. And media shows it as the first milestone of the event. Before achieved anything, the owners honor these players with a welcome trophy and goodies (This is also news for media).

The opening ceremony starts after some background tasks such as composing a theme song with owners’ appearance, designing the dress code showcasing all the sponsor’s’ logos on it, choosing the right coach (Sorry, Not one coach per team. I meant one for fielding, one for batting etc.) Wow! It’s IPL Opening Ceremony. What a platform to sell Indian film actors and celebrities to the world and international celebrities to grow their market in India. Irrespective of hit or flop, media shows the event as a grand success and promotes IPL.

The board members of IPL chose the commentators and anchors with dynamic sense of humor and criticism. Here is another opportunity for every alumni of Indian cricket team to get some money and fame. IPL commentary or game analysis doesn’t need to be a formal conversation where they analyze and discuss about the game. It’s all about entertainment.  People get entertainment from the anchors and commentators of the broadcasting channel from their songs, dances and sarcastic comments. I’ve never seen Sunil Gavaskar or Sidhu (Anyone for that matter) singing songs and dancing during the session of analyzing the play. Again it’s all about holding the viewer’s remote not to change the channel.

To make every moment to take part in the game, IPL counts every statistics of the game such as Sixes to dot balls (Every match does it but IPL publishes to make the game more interesting). For these statistics, sponsors make use to brand their products e.g. Karbonn Kamal Catch. I don’t want to comment about cheerleaders and twitter business here (You know better than me).

However, I’m glad that the business strategy of combining Cricket with entertainment is working out perfectly. Good TRP, chance to upcoming local players and retired senior players and a good time pass comes in a single package – critics might argue “IPL is not pure form of cricket and real cricketing skills will be tested only in TEST Cricket”, but in the modern generation when everything is desired to be fast, who cares, it’s all about entertainment IPL.

T2S, IT Backbone of European Capital Market – DEMYSTIFYING THE NXT GEN

Trading is a bundle of Risks, Rules, Regulations and Rotation of assets. As you are aware, the process of trading is simple (Buy or sell using your DEMAT account).  But the actual Risks and Regulations bother when performing post trade functions. In the capital markets, payment and securities settlement systems play crucial role. The importance of cash and securities settlement systems in modern economies has grown considerably over the last two decades due to the growth in the volume foreign exchange and financial markets globally. Indian Capital Markets (majorly BSE and NSE) being done its trading with single currency and performing domestic transactions; rolling settlement is done on (T+2) cycle basis. Imagine EUCM (European Capital Market) where settlement has to be done not only for domestic trading (within a country) but also for cross-border trading (across countries with multiple currencies) is planning to do the settlement irrespective of domestic or cross-border, intraday (T+0), would it  change the financial market structure of entire Europe? Yes, this paper gives an overview of how Europe is going to achieve this using T2S (Target 2 Securities), an enhancement service of the existing TARGET2 application. This paper also gives an idea of various post trade functions of EUCM and how T2S helps in bringing down the time and cost.

Benefit summary to Trader:

• With T2S, the major benefit to the traders is cross-border settlements (both cash and securities) also can be done with same fees as for a domestic settlement
•  Settlements are done intraday with accelerated process of harmonization⁸ and standardization
• Risk of delaying implementation of solutions aimed at taking apart of Giovannini barriers is mitigated
• The market and every post trading function would be transparent as T2S is an online direct connectivity to the trading application
• Secured risk profile can be achieved by handling project risks, operational risks, systemic risks and securities lending activities effectively

Future actions: It is recommended to explore detailed functionality (Various participants) and technology layers for better idea of working of/with T2S.

Full article is at: http://nousinfo.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/t2s-it-backbone-of-european-capital-market-%E2%80%93-demystifying-the-nxt-gen/

About the Article / Author:

When this article was published, Uday Kamatham was a part of the Technical Solutions Team at Nous Infosystems, Bangalore. He has been with Nous Infosystems for over a year and specializes in the Banking, Financial Services and Capital Markets domains with technical expertise in cloud computing and SaaS applications.

This Article was developed for a white paper contest organized within Nous Infosystems.

Currently Uday Kamatham is working with Accenture, Bangalore as a Proposal Architect with Technology Sales Support Center (The team).