3 Things to Try to Boost Team Productivity

I'm sure we've all seen it. The team is spinning their wheels. Lots of motion, but they aren't going anywhere. Everything is urgent but nothing gets done.

Before I get into the three things to try, I'll start with a prerequisite. Before the team does any work on any feature or project, they need to understand the purpose of the work.

This is about vision. The team needs to know what problem they are trying to solve and why. If you don't have that, no amount of tips or tricks will help your team. Start there. It's surprising how many teams struggle with this.

If your team does understand the problem, here are three things to try to boost productivity:

1. Limit your work in progress
2. Aim Small
3. Focus on Flow

Let's break these down.

Limit Work In Progress

Sometimes, with good intentions, we say yes to everything. But by doing so, we essentially say yes to nothing. Multitasking has been proven to be a terrible way to improve productivity.

Every time you are saying yes to one thing, you are saying 'not right now' to everything else. Limiting your work in progress forces a conversation as to what is most important to work on first. When you finished that first thing, find the next most important thing.

This is an extremely powerful tool to create clarity, honesty, and focus in the workplace. I've seen it work wonders with teams.

Aim Small

"Aim small, miss small." I took this phrase from my karate instructor. It applies to our everyday work as well. If you are aiming for someone's whole body and miss, you will miss the target altogether. If you are aiming for the sternum and miss, you will have still hit part of the target (most likely).

Small epics, small stories, small problems. The benefits are many.

Finishing something small means you have a moment to think of what to do next. This allows for more flexibility and pivoting and also takes into account recent learning.

Smaller work means a clearer focus on what it is you are trying to do. It keeps us from getting bogged down in the weeds, going too deep, or producing more than is required. We're just looking to solve one thing at a time. If more problems are discovered, add that to the list and prioritize it later.

The clarity we get from breaking our work down into smaller problems is also a risk reducing function. Smaller problem equals smaller risk.

Smaller work usually means higher quality. If someone is asked to review a whole book for misspelled words and another is asked to review one chapter, which do you think will have the higher quality review?

And finally, smaller items delivered quickly means getting feedback more frequently. The learning we get from doing the work plus the feedback we get from presenting it gives us clarity on what to do next.

Focus on Flow

If you tried the first two tips above, you have probably already started to see improvement in flow. In fact, they are probably the two greatest levers in improving flow of work for your teams.

But there is another leverage point that I have found very effective.

I find waiting to be the biggest impediment to flow. Waiting on feedback, waiting on reviews, waiting for a meeting, waiting for decisions to be made, waiting for automated tasks to finish. One article suggests that most work is in a waiting state 85% of time from when it starts to when it finishes. Many times, waiting is within the sphere of control of a team. Find out where it is happening and try to reduce it. It's one of the most effective places to leverage for increasing the flow of work.

Conclusion

Limit work in progress, aim small, focus on flow. Give these ideas a try. I've used them in multiple contexts and have yet to see them fail to produce positive impact.