January 2014 Manish Dullabh Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd [email protected] +27 72 232...

January 2014

Manish Dullabh

Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd

www.dullabh.com

[email protected]

+27 72 232 3795

Ten questions to ask when building high performing teams

An IT Manager’s guide:

2

The importance of building great IT teams

In a technology environment, it is common for the momentum gained on planned activities to be disrupted regularly with varying degrees of impact. Great IT teams are able to quickly address these disruptions by collaborating, leveraging off each others strengths and then working as a cohesive unit to address these events.

In the project environment, changing end-user requirements, software integration challenges and data quality issues are just some of the factors that can disrupt the momentum gained. On the other spectrum, IT teams also tend to face crisis situations to restore existing IT services that unexpectedly fail.

Thriving in an environment that also demands increasing levels of service uptime, quality and agility can only be achieved by strong IT teams. Today, IT solutions can consist of multiple programming languages, 3rd party products, legacy platforms and multiple hardware platforms. Apart from solution complexity, many disparate teams have to collaborate to address any challenges that may arise.

The purpose of this article is to help IT managers assess their environments and apply the necessary improvements in the quest to creating high performing IT teams that can navigate through both the existing and future challenges that occur in the enterprise. The benefit of enhancing team performance is improved client and employee satisfaction but more importantly – an improved ROI (return on investment) from IT.

“Coming together is a beginning.Keeping together is progress.Working together is success.”

- Henry Ford

Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd - All Rights Reserved

3

Overview of this guide

7 Themes

Organisational Structure

People, Skills & Competencies

Culture, Ethics & Behaviour

ProcessesServices,

Infrastructure & Applications

Information

Principles, Policies and Frameworks

This guide requires an IT manager to address 10 key questions relating to 7 IT themes (or IT enablers as known in COBIT5). These themes ensure that the IT manager looks at improvements holistically for their areas

Each question will require the IT manager to assess their current environment in order to identify key gaps that can be turned into planned improvements

A number of improvements may possibly be identified through this process. In some cases, improvements may overlap with each other thus allowing the IT manager to group improvements together when planning to apply changes to their environment


“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.” - Patrick Lencioni

4

Theme – Organisational Structure

Question 1: Do I have a clear organisational structure with defined reporting lines and clear roles & responsibilities?

Prior to addressing any cultural aspects or behavioural aspects of a team, it is critical to ensure that the expectations of each team member is well defined and documented. The process of clarifying roles and responsibilities is thus critical in setting expectations

In the global corporate environment, it is common to have virtual teams spread across geographies with matrix reporting lines. This reinforces the need for IT managers to ensure that focus is placed on clarifying their expectations in these structures

While IT managers may have an open-door policy for all staff, it is important that team members clearly understand their reporting lines and respect this structure. Failure to do this can lead in IT managers being swamped with resource management tasks

Question 2: Do I have a clear stakeholder map? Teams in a corporate environment deal with a number of

internal and external stakeholders on a day-to-day basis. Stakeholders can include clients (internal or external), internal IT partners and external 3rd party suppliers

Understanding key stakeholders and the reporting lines within their structures is critical in building strong relationships and vital when dealing with escalations

Key Recommendations:- Set expectations of your team

by defining Roles & Responsibilities and clarifying reporting lines

- Understand your stakeholder structures to build relationships but to also manage escalations


5

Theme – People, Skills & Competencies

Question 3: Have I assessed my team’s skills relative to the requirements specified in their roles?

In a continuously evolving IT environment, expectations of resources can change (and increase) as a function of time. Thus, it is important to ensure that IT managers assess individuals against their roles to identify development areas that can be incorporated into career plans

While work experience is considered priceless for a particular role, formal certifications for specific types of roles (Example: Project Management, Business Analysis, IT Architecture) can ensure boost the confidence in both the individual and their stakeholders in their ability to perform their required duties

A proven but less-implemented approach towards aligning skills against expectations is to identify synergies across a team so that a team can leverage off the strengths of the individuals. This reduces the need to have resources capable of meeting all expectations of their individuals roles and allows them to focus and enhance their strong points

Key recommendations- Recognise the need to develop

skills as expectations change- Build confidence in capability

through certifications- Use individual’s strengths to

create team synergies


6

Theme – Culture, Ethics and Behaviour

Question 4: Is the culture in my team supportive of a high performing culture?

While the organisation is responsible for setting direction on culture, it is the eco-system created by the people in the organisation that ultimately determines the culture of the organisation. In large organisations, it is also evident that cultures between teams are different

A high performing team would generally create a culture that encourages collaboration, recognition for extra-effort and a sense of belonging to a unit that can achieve the extra-ordinary.

IT managers can help drive these traits in leading by example in the quality of work that they do, by marketing the strength of their teams to peers and clients (and the to the teams themselves) and by ensuring that extra-ordinary activities get visibility and recognition by clients and senior managers

Key recommendations- Lead by example- Reward great achievement

publicly- Create a sense of belonging to

something extra-ordinary


“To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another.” - John C. Maxwell

Theme – Processes

Question 5: Are processes to handle exceptions and deviations well understood and defined?

Disruptions or change can easily trigger emotional reaction and frustration. In many cases, it is largely because it is unclear how to handle these situations objectively. Defining and executing processes to handle these events can take out emotion and allow teams to rapidly regain momentum

It is important to change the individual team member’s mind-set from looking at change or disruption negatively. For every one of these events, it is important to ensure that teams place focus on the options available to move forward and to allow key stakeholders to balance the pro’s and con’s of these options to enable decision making and progression

7

Question 6: Are the processes effective? Having a ineffective process is just as bad as having

no process. IT managers need to be able to drive and influence the organisation in simplifying processes and empowering teams to make decisions within their control. For example, in a project environment, setting tolerance levels (For example, a 10% allowance on budget deviation) can enable teams to make decisions within their limits without needing to go through various governance layers


Key recommendations- Ensure that processes are defined and

communicated but also ensure that they are efficient and empower teams to make decisions within their span of control

8

Theme – Services, Infrastructure and Apps

Question 7: Are SLAs with both internal clients and 3rd party suppliers well defined?

The external perception of team performance needs to have a benchmark for comparison. That benchmark is usually a well-defined SLA with clients. In an large organisation, while there are no direct financial penalties imposed on internal teams for missed SLAs, setting internal SLAs creates a common understanding of the level of service required. It allows teams to have a benchmark to work against - and more importantly to exceed

Setting SLAs with IT partners and 3rd party suppliers is just as important and setting SLAs with clients. This enforces control and reliability of the services provided by these parties

Question 8: Do your teams have the appropriate tools to work effectively?

Having the appropriate hardware (processing power) and software tools within and IT team can significantly enable operational efficiency. While investing in these tools and platforms comes at a cost, the return on investment in terms of man-hours saved can be tremendous


Key recommendations- Define SLAs with clients even if

there are no financial penalties- Ensure that SLAs are defined with

IT partners and 3rd parties- Enable your team to perform

better through investing in technology

9

Theme – Information Question 9: Do you harness the power of

information in your team? Information in the form of communication is vital to

ensure that team members and stakeholders are “synchronised”. IT managers must ensure that all gateways (including themselves) to communication are kept open to ensure information flow. In keeping with trends, leverage off social collaboration tools to rapidly disseminate information amongst teams. These tools can also enable dialog and debate which harnesses the power of teamwork

Information in the form of knowledge can be harnessed to increase effectiveness. Frameworks like PRINCE2 and ITIL reinforce a culture of learning from previous lessons and experiences. These frameworks encourage the use of knowledge repositories to enable teams to leverage off gained knowledge

Data Information Knowledge Wisdom


Key recommendations- Keep communication channels open- Leverage off social collaboration tools

available in the enterprise- Leverage of previous experiences and

lessons to convert knowledge to wisdom

10

Theme – Principles, Policies and Frameworks

Question 10: Do I leverage off the policies defined by the organisation?

Policies (Code of Conduct policies, IT policies, etc.) are setup to ensure compliance to specific standards and values that the organisation desires to achieve. While these are often under-valued, organisational principles and policies are vital in reinforcing the desired behaviour of team members

IT managers can leverage off these policies to reinforce their expectations of team behaviour but to also handle sensitive situations with team members such as compulsive internet-surfing and absenteeism


Key recommendations- Use organisational policies to

reinforce desired behaviour

11

Conclusion

High performing teams can be developed over time.

IT managers need to take the lead in developing these teams by taking a holistic approach towards improving team performance

It is recommended that IT managers prioritise any improvements identified through this exercise and focus initially on quick-wins to build momentum

It is also recommended that periodic reviews of team performance is conducted by re-examining the 10 questions in this exercise. These reviews can be done quarterly or bi-annually


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

12

About the author

Manish Dullabh is an Independent Management & IT Consultant focused on delivering consulting services to the Financial Services industry. He is committed to ensuring that all engagements deliver progressive change to clients by leveraging off his global workplace exposure, strong work ethic, varied skills & relevant domain knowledge. Manish is a certified PRINCE2 practitioner and well-versed with the ITIL v3 and COBIT5 concepts.

Key services: Facilitating and helping define IT Strategy & associated IT roadmaps Interim IT Management Managing short-term high-impact projects Executing Process Improvement initiatives

Contact Informatione: [email protected]: +27 72 232 3795w: www.dullabh.comt: @manishdullabh

Copyright © Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd 2014. All Rights Reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without consent from the author. Images used in this material are royalty free and sourced from www.freedigitalphotos.net

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.dullabh.com/

January 2014 Manish Dullabh Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd [email protected] +27 72 232...

Documents

Transcript of January 2014 Manish Dullabh Dullabh Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd [email protected] +27 72 232...