...
| Proposed by: (optional) | I propose to focus on ... | Further comments/reasons/clarification | Action | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Productivity in remote working environment | |||||||||
| Effective collaboration (what it is and how to achieve it) remotely | |||||||||
| How to achieve and sustain adequate levels of engagement (virtual teams) ("team energy") | |||||||||
| Impact of remote working on our use of time, i.e. less time to commute - more time to have things done? | |||||||||
| Alan Lewis | Hybrid teams - how to run them? The implications of hybrid ways of working | Hybrid working should be greater than the sum of its parts - i.e. local and remote work techniques and strategies. Effective Hybrid work is likely to require a re-designing of the team and work activity to be maximally effective and to address such issues as differential treatment, proximity bias and task allocation. (Thank you, Alan) and to add to the reflections on the subject of Hybrid working - I have come across this very recent research (30,000 people in 31 countries) by the Learning and Performance Institute in UK.
Research has some interesting insights, e.g. "Comparing collaboration trends in Microsoft 365 between February 2020 and February 2021, the research shows that the average meeting is 10 minutes longer, increasing from 35 to 45 minutes, and that the average Teams user is sending 45% more chats per week and 42% more chats per person after hours. Workers are grappling with more information and more ad hoc communication, with 62% of calls and meetings unscheduled". And "The research shows that younger workers are struggling more than older workers in various aspects of their work, including being able to bring new ideas to the table, getting a word in during conference calls and feeling engaged or excited about work. And pandemic isolation has shrunk work networks with workers becoming more siloed than they were before the pandemic. On a more positive note, compared to one year ago, 39% of people say they’re more likely to be their full, authentic selves at work and 31% are less likely to feel embarrassed or ashamed when their home life shows up at work". | A new activity is under way to improve and evolve the product lifecycle management process. This will be supported by a distributed team, within in once he pandemic has waned some groups will be locally collocated. Design a workplan and approach for such a setting, taking account of issues with existing working practices and suggesting improvements. | ||||||
| Balancing work roles and responsibilities, i.e. "local" vs "external" (dual lines of reporting) | |||||||||
| Alan Lewis | Trust - how, what? What is our experience has been so far? What do we know? What do we want to know? | Trust is a fundamental baseline for effective collaboration. Personal contact helps to cement trust and in a distributed environment of project operational centres establishing trust can become more challenging and impact on working practices and individuals. In a hybrid setting with smaller localised groupings (down to the individual level) and less frequent contact this can be even more challenging. What is the best way to establish rust in a hybrid setting? What approaches can lead to maximising the effectiveness of the overall endeavor? How is trust best maintained in a hybrid setting? | Initially summarise experiences so far within my current context. There may be an opportunity to look at trust establishment when joining a new group already containing individuals familiar with both remote and localised working | ||||||
| Onboarding for virtual teams |
The follow-up meeting took place on 13/05/21; subject discussed - "The future is hybrid", the organisation effectiveness of a hybrid team: challenges and possible solutions
Challenges (and there are many more - please add):
Disparity of environments (physical/virtual) and their effects on individual members of a team
Psychological barrier and silos, i.e. people working in an office have the advantage and benefits of social interaction, teams, potentially, can become more segregated. if you want to run a team building activity what would be an effective activity that would bring together essentially two sub-teams?
How to design and organise teams, activities and tasks - there is a chance that as team leader you may end up managing a hybrid team consisting of mini-hybrid teams.
Advantages of co-location and remote working may become diluted rather than creating a synergy.
Activities, tasks and their implementation may become more disaggregated, and it may affect the potential for creativity and creative solutions
As a team leader do you need to apply 2 types solutions for one aspect of a team function that will work for both physical and remote parts of a team?
A suggested to treat a hybrid team as a remote team may feel strained and artificial for the office-based team members and this will impact on team cohesion.
How to identify/work out solutions?
For the next two months use your power of observation and reflection: observing how teams are operating now - take notice of of what else may present a challenge when becoming a hybrid team, equally, when something seems to be a solution - take note too. Be specific: if something feels/appears to a challenge - then what makes it a challenge? if something feels like a solution - what make it (what 'it" is) to work.
Keep adding your findings to the wiki page or bring them with you to the next meeting.
Next meeting - end of June (date TBCThe next meeting will take place in mid-May (TBC, subject to doodle poll, IM to set up).
Something of interest to share:
...