How to create a highly productive team

Imagine having a productive team. One that doesn’t complain at the hint of minor adjustments to scheduling. One that just gets stuff done.

This doesn’t need to be the stuff of dreams. It doesn’t matter the size of your team. All it takes is a few simple steps which, if followed, will enable your staff to be a more productive team than you ever thought possible.

Set clear goals and objectives

Does everyone in your team know what he/she needs to do each day?

This might sound like an obvious question, but you’d be surprised by how many small business employees don’t really know what they’re contributing to each day.

Make the objectives and goals for the business clear, and link each task everyone undertakes to those goals. Your team will feel far more engaged with the overall plan as a result.

Plan meticulously

You can’t over-plan in business. The more thoroughly planned a project is, the more prepared everyone will be if and when things go off course.

Make sure you draw up daily, weekly, monthly and annual plans for every team member, and implement shared to-do lists to keep everyone on task.

Adopt an organised approach

The more organised you are, the more likely your team is to follow that lead.

An organised mind and an organised desk is key here.

Encourage team members to organise their to-do lists in a structured fashion and keep the office tidy; only leave the stuff out that needs to be worked on.

Prioritise tasks

Your team doesn’t have to do everything at once, and every single person should certainly be working from a prioritised to-do list.

This can be achieved by continually reviewing each day’s tasks. What’s vitally important? What can be deferred? What doesn’t need to be there at all?

Try and encourage the team to focus on their prioritised tasks each day. Everything else can wait.

Clarify expectations

What do you expect from your team?

The more they understand what it is you want from them, the more they’ll respond positively.

You can aid this by ensuring everyone has their own, clear individual responsibilities and itemised job descriptions.

Find the best team management tools

Thankfully, we live in a world full of brilliant task and team management tools.

It’s vitally important to find the one that best fits your team.

Try a few out (Trello is a great example), and stick with the one that everyone feels comfortable with. Make the task management system you choose the bible for the team – it’s vital they buy into it if it’s to benefit their productivity levels.

Track and analyse progress

This is an ongoing task – becoming more productive will continue to slip if you don’t regularly track and analyse team progress.

Hold regular one-to-one and team meetings to see how people are getting on, and to identify (and fix) any issues before they become bigger problems.

Track time

Tracking time might sound old-fashioned but, when combined with flexible working hours, it’s a great way of keeping teams on task.

There are plenty of tools out there to help with this, but the trick with time tracking is to embed it throughout the organisation and highlight how it benefits the team.

There’s nothing quite like looking back at how hard you’ve worked each day for inspiration, after all.

Finally: be ready to adapt

The best teams are agile and can turn on a sixpence.

In today’s world, they’ll need to, because things can change without warning. This is why your team needs to be ready to adapt to unexpected hurdles or industry changes.

Are you ready to foster a relentlessly productive team? Use our tips above, and make sure you refer to them consistently.