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A major concern for many team leaders is effective team time management. The team leader must address distractions and time wasting delays. This often involves changing the habits and behaviours of team members.
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Quick reference
Time Management
A major concern for many team leaders is effective team time management. The team leader must address distractions and time wasting delays. This often involves changing the habits and behaviours of team members.
When to use
Team leaders must apply time management techniques to team activities at all times in order to ensure the team is efficient and productive. When team activities are delayed, the team leader should diagnose the reasons and take appropriate corrective action.
Instructions
Team performance is often measured by the team’s ability to complete tasks and activities on time. A team leader must be able to manage time well. Some delays are outside the control of the team, but many delays are due to team member behaviour and actions. A team leader needs to be able to recognize these and correct them.
Over-allocation
Some team members are unable to complete everything on time because it is just too much to do. When a team leader recognizes this they either reallocate work or prioritize the work so that the most important activities are completed first.
Student syndrome
Some team members delay starting activities until the last minute and then try to “pull an all-nighter.” With these individuals, many activity start and interim progress points to ensure they are using all the allocated time for the activity.
Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking creates delays by starting new activities without first finishing the earlier activities. Soon everything is started and nothing is completed. Prioritize and focus the work so that the most important activities are done before others are started.
Delays accumulate – advances do not
If tasks or activities are sequential, a delay in a preceding task will cascade to create a delay in the following tasks. However, early completions often are not acknowledged or the next task is not started early but rather at its scheduled start. So the benefit of the advance is lost. Track and manage the handoffs between sequential tasks to realize the benefit of early completions.
Dealing with uncertainty
In uncertain or ambiguous situations teams often delay actions while waiting to find out how other will react. The team leader needs to instigate action to keep the team moving forward. The example and peer pressure will cause the rest of the team to follow.
Distractions
Whether from internal or external sources, the team leader needs to take control of the distraction. Either shield the team from the distraction, with the team take on the distraction as a team challenge, or address the team member who is creating an internal distraction. Unless the distraction is addressed and resolved, it will cause delays as team members become focused on the distraction and not the team activities.
Login to download- 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:05 Let's talk for a few minutes about another team process, and that is time management.
- 00:10 A team leader often needs to proactively address this area with their team.
- 00:16 I'll start with the self-afflicting wound of delays caused by the actions of team
- 00:21 members.
- 00:21 The most common reason for delay is too much work.
- 00:25 The team members are over-allocated, and they're not able to get everything done
- 00:29 in the desired time period, because it's just too much.
- 00:32 When your team faces this situation,
- 00:35 it's imperative that you provide clear priorities of tasks and activities, so
- 00:39 that the team knows what to focus on and what has been designated for delay.
- 00:43 As a team leader, you need to accept the fact that something will be delayed, and
- 00:48 your job is to determine what will be delayed.
- 00:50 There are some other reasons for delays that are inherent in human nature.
- 00:55 First is the student syndrome.
- 00:57 I'm sure you never did this, but maybe you had a sibling or a roommate who would wait
- 01:02 until the last minute to start working on their homework or an assignment, and
- 01:06 then try to pull an all-nighter to get it done.
- 01:09 The way to lead your team members who are susceptible to the student syndrome
- 01:13 is the same way that the professor or teacher dealt with the term paper.
- 01:16 Check along the way for progress.
- 01:18 Is there an outline?
- 01:19 Is there a rough draft?
- 01:21 In this case, has the task started yet?
- 01:24 Next is the impact of multi-tasking.
- 01:26 We all do it, thinking it will make us more efficient.
- 01:29 But often, just the opposite happens.
- 01:31 We start something and make a little progress on it, then
- 01:34 jump to the next task without finishing the first, and then on to the next.
- 01:38 Everything is started but nothing is finished.
- 01:41 Assuming it is beneficial for the team to complete tasks, wouldn't
- 01:44 it be better to complete at least some tasks rather than starting everything and
- 01:48 completing nothing?
- 01:49 Therefore, as team leader, prioritize the tasks and
- 01:52 ensure high-priority tasks are done before others are started.
- 01:56 The final reason is that delays accumulate, but advances don't.
- 02:00 A characteristic of time is that it cannot be stored.
- 02:03 Either use it when available, or it is lost forever.
- 02:06 So let's consider the case where a team has a set of tasks
- 02:10 that must be conducted in sequence.
- 02:12 When one task is delayed, It automatically delays the start of the next task,
- 02:16 and multiple delays can accumulate, impacting the final results.
- 02:21 But early completions are often wasted.
- 02:23 In some cases, team members won't acknowledge they are done early, for
- 02:27 fear that they will be expected to finish early on other tasks.
- 02:31 Even if early completion is acknowledged,
- 02:33 the next task often won't start until it's scheduled to start, so
- 02:37 the opportunity to take advantage of the early completion is lost.
- 02:41 That is why schedule advances typically don't accumulate.
- 02:44 The solution to this situation is to track handoffs between sequential tasks,
- 02:49 to ensure that the benefits of an early completion are realized by starting
- 02:52 the next task early.
- 02:55 Sometimes, delays are due to circumstances outside the control of the team.
- 02:59 Another characteristic of human behavior is that when circumstances or
- 03:03 situation is uncertain or ambitious, many people will look to those around them for
- 03:07 clues as to what they should do, and how they should act.
- 03:11 If no one is certain what to do, everyone will just mull around waiting for
- 03:15 some direction.
- 03:17 That is why a team leader needs to be prepared to instigate action.
- 03:21 Even if it is not the perfect action, the team leader can get things moving, and
- 03:25 then make some mid-course corrections.
- 03:28 In these uncertain circumstances, everyone takes on one of these roles.
- 03:33 They maybe the instigator who leads the group forward.
- 03:36 They may be the roadblock who slows or stalls actions, usually not from spite,
- 03:41 but more from fear of the unknown.
- 03:43 Then there are the supporters.
- 03:45 Set them on a path and they will support and
- 03:47 encourage everyone else to follow along.
- 03:49 Finally, there are the followers.
- 03:51 They are one step behind the instigator and supporters.
- 03:54 They'll follow the rest of the the team, but are ill-prepared to lead it.
- 03:58 Over time, as a team faces numerous situations, team members often adopt these
- 04:03 roles, and they begin to expect the appropriate behavior from each other.
- 04:08 The third source of delay is the intentional distraction of disruptors.
- 04:12 Sometimes these are well intentioned, and sometimes not.
- 04:16 Sometimes the distraction comes from outside the team.
- 04:19 When this occurs, there are two approaches you could use.
- 04:22 One that I have often employed when serving as a team leader
- 04:25 is that I take on the distraction myself.
- 04:28 I shield the team from the distraction and its effects, and
- 04:31 I work directly with the distraction to address the issue.
- 04:34 This works very well if the distraction is an individual or stakeholder.
- 04:38 The other approach is to treat the distraction as a team challenge, and
- 04:42 make it into a team-building activity that the team must face and overcome.
- 04:47 Sometimes the distraction is within the team.
- 04:50 A team member or team activity becomes a source of irritation or distraction.
- 04:54 It could be a minor distraction, such as a team member disrupting a team meeting
- 04:58 by talking to someone on their phone during the meeting.
- 05:01 In a case like that, apply typical interaction management techniques to
- 05:04 regain control of the situation.
- 05:07 These include things like making eye contact with the distractor,
- 05:10 moving close to them, or using your voice to get their attention.
- 05:13 If it is an activity that's causing the distraction, call a quick break and
- 05:17 discuss the situation as a team.
- 05:20 Facing the challenge head-on can quickly change the attitude and atmosphere
- 05:24 of the team, and get there working together to overcome the distraction.
- 05:28 One thing to guard against when there is a team member involved is to publicly
- 05:31 reprimand that person.
- 05:33 Yes, stop the distracting behavior.
- 05:35 But if you want a person to remain a valuable part of your team,
- 05:39 don't publicly humiliate them.
- 05:41 That both creates animosity in the team member, and it lowers them in the eyes of
- 05:45 the other team members, making it harder for them to work together effectively.
- 05:50 Many things can occur to delay a team.
- 05:55 Now often these are due to either team behavior or
- 05:57 how they react to circumstances.
- 06:00 As a team leader, you need to help them through these situations.
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