Alexa's Blog

Hi Folks,

Here is a new chapter from my Team Management and Leadership series.Today I want to speak about so called “Jelly Team” , what is it and what are a few steps to build one.
Like I said in my previous posts, the main goal of every project manager should be to take care of his team as best as possible among the other responsibilities he have.I don´t know why, but doing a search on Google did not returned the results I expected and I am very surprised about that.There are many methods of managing teams out there and nobody cares or put accent on this issue which I think is a vital one when working on projects.Or maybe I just use the wrong therm ? Who knows…

However, let´s go a bit and look what a jelly team is from a project manager and his team point of view.As you know, every team work best if the players can communicate and fell better together, if they share the same goals and have the same aspirations.To make this happen the project manager and the management staff needs to provide an healthy medium of work and keep their eyes open to the emotional status of all team members.Stress and pressure might affect them in a bad way and for sure sooner or later will generate conflicts inside the team. A continuous conflictive situation is not something you want to have in your team and you should take measures to avoid them as soon you see any minor sign.

From my point of view a jelly team is closer to the ideal team where all things are going well and all members are happy to come and work.It´s the team that can solve quick problems, and any employee aspire to get into sooner or later.Is a “magic box” which you know that once opened can solve all your problems in time and budget.It´s the team which know each members strength and they are able to distribute the work inside to give maximum of productivity.It´s a team who got others teams respect and in most of the cases have a nice or silly:) name. It´s the team for witch the word “team work” mean something and they put all successes and failures on the team name and not for them selfs.Is the team that can easily accept you inside if your profile match or quickly reject you if don´t.
If you can identify some of the previous aspects in your team, then you are on the right way.Keep them together and do your best to make them happy working with you.

How to build a team like that ? It´s a long way, but here are a few points about how you can start

• Look for team members which can easily communicate
• Look for team members who share the same hobby’s
• Look for team members who like to share they knowledge to others
• Give problems and tasks at the team level instead of individuals and ask the whole team to provide a solutions.
• Share part of your management tasks with them.This will make them collaborate and organize the team work “inside”.
• Monitor who are the persons that tend to motivate and animate the team.Try to see how they are doing that and what other members like from their personality.
• Treat them equally from the professional point of view.Even if some members are weaker in some areas, if the team spirit works, the other members will get implied and add it on the right way.If not, they will reject it sooner or later.
• When a new member is proposed, ask the team first and get their opinions.
• Inspire them to get a name for the team(if they don´t have one already ) and help them to make this a “brand” inside and outside of your company.
• Stay in front of your team and protect their work medium.Fight with your managers to get the best conditions and required tools.

You can do that? I think yes, you can do many of the above points. And if you start with a few and your team is starting to become “jelly”, the other ones will follow also in a much easy way.

That´s all for today.I will really enjoy to hear some opinions, good or bad ones from your experience.

Happy jellying!