A chain is as strong as its weakest link. A development team can face problems with productivity when there is a basic communication problem, a manager who is unclear on how to proceed with the project, or sequential processes.
Development can also slow down if there is no coordination between the different members of a team and they end up working in different directions, with no consensus on the end result. There should be collaboration with valuable and workable input from the design and development teams in a project so that the project is completed successfully and yields results.
Here are 10 Steps in increasing the development team’s overall productivity.
Step 1: Know your roles
Having confusion about the roles in a project can set your project towards disaster before the project even starts. There can be gross amount of duplicate work, thus a loss in productivity if each member of the team doesn’t know what they are responsible for.
Have a list of members’ names who are involved in the project, assigning what roles they have exactly and what team they are part of. This clarifies everyone’s roles and responsibilities and ensures transparency and accountability.
Step 2: Have a unified system with guidelines
If the team is part of a global enterprise, it is good to have a unified process swept across the board that helps the newcomer get up to speed and contributing in no time, with the help of other initially, of course. To save time explaining, ideally, there should be a set of resources available to each new member of the team to understand whole process quickly.
Step 3: Monitor Communication
Ensure that the team has coordination among all of its members. Monitor their communication as clear communication is crucial, especially for high profile projects. There should be a digital imprint or record of conversations. That could be by way of an application specifically designed for keeping tabs on the conversations and that you can use again for different projects. Coordinate among members with an application such as Moxtra, Bitrix24, eXo and others so there is no miscommunication, and productivity is sped up.
Step 4: Use a Project manager
A project manager can eliminate the need for the team to be supervised and keep track of the overall project. The project manager will do that for them. Make sure he/she is familiar with your industry and how projects work, though.
Step 5: Take Special care of Quality
Project managers should be asked to make a detailed guideline for acceptance so that at the end of the project, the efforts don’t go to waste. Revisions and rework are a boon to productivity of any project. The back and forth creates havoc with the planned deadlines and create further problems down the road.
Step 6: Record processes to avoid future mistakes
When you are working on a project, it can pay off to record the process of the project. It can be beneficial for the future, and can increase productivity by avoiding any pitfalls. Using the same methodology and framework for a project can be a great if it is similar, and the methodology has been adopted from previous projects under the company’s belt.
Step 7: Cross team functionality
Once the project has commenced and everyone knows their roles, couple the design and development teams together. Each member who wishes to provide workable input, or wants to debate any ideas, can do it then and there. Getting problems out of the way saves time and provides synchronization and harmony among the team to get more work done fast.
Step 8: Be careful if Change the project
Team members can be demotivated if the whole project is changed while they’re working on it. If the requirements are changed, the project will see a fall in overall productivity from the team
Step 9: Keep motivation up
If team members are with the cause of the project and believe in the benefits, they will be motivated to work for it leading to higher productivity.
Step 10: Avoid new features you are unsure of
These new features may seem like they are providing a momentary gain of consumers but if the kinks haven’t been figured out they may reduce the advantages and people may start opting out of it, thus reducing the overall effective productivity of the team as it will take a lot of time to figure the kinks out.