We all want to be part of successful teams – teams that are highly productive and effective, work in perfect harmony, and create magic. But do such teams exist? Having worked in different organisations and leading teams for over a decade, I have realised that an effective leader can build such dream teams if they consider the following vital factors while building and expanding teams.
Team Members
Your team members are crucial to the team’s success. You must take utmost care to choose who you want in your team. A great team player can bring tremendous positive energy and influence the other team members significantly. Curate hiring processes, which not only evaluate the technical skills of a candidate but also check their fitment in the team and culture.
Team Structure
Prepare a blueprint for your team – the different levels and designations.
- Setting a team structure helps set the expectations when hiring new team members.
- A team structure provides clarity in terms of band, designation and the compensation structure of the team members.
- The team members can see a clear career path.
- Keep your team structure up-to-date as the business needs change. A company may see changes such as:
a) A critical project that requires additional resources temporarily where you may want to hire Contractors.
b) Team expansion due to an increase in work, the launch of new products or development to newer geographies where you need more team members to manage work.
c) Team realignment due to a sudden dip in work or due to budgetary and business needs.
Work Allocation
Your Team Leads and Managers should allocate work so that work is fairly distributed among team members based on their skills and expertise levels.
Add some variety in work that helps the team members to explore and learn new skills. Variety in work is crucial, especially for highly skilled team members who need complex and exciting work to keep them engaged and motivated.
We at Razorpay do not restrict ourselves to writing technical documents. We work with Product and Engineering to design products. We conduct user interviews throughout the year to speak to the users directly and gather feedback on Razorpay Docs. We also host events and talk shows related to Technical Writing and contributing to the Tech Writing community!
Processes and Tools
Processes and tools play a key role in the life of a Tech Writer. A long, clumsy documentation process, a lot of time spent on administrative tasks, and redundant jobs reduce the efficiency of the team members and the scope for innovation.
- The team should work towards optimising their processes. Use templates and standardisation to ease work.
- Use the tools available in the market, including AI. For example, if your team needs to optimise content for SEO, there are several tools and Chrome extensions that help you with the basic SEO checks like ALT text for images, headings and meta descriptions. Leverage AI tools like ChatGPT. See our recommendations on how ChatGPT can be used in Technical Writing.
- Use automation and reduce redundant work as much as possible.
Team Dynamics
Team Dynamics is another critical element that can drive ordinary people to create extraordinary value.
- Talk to your team members often to understand their workload, type of work and challenges.
- Connect with your team on forums like Standups and Weekly Connect to learn their progress and where they need support.
- Build rapport with your team members so they can speak fearlessly and share ideas. A few team members need additional support; they will open up only if they are comfortable talking.
- Spend some time together with your team. Team lunches, break time, birthday/anniversary celebrations, fun time together – All these create a lot of space for your team members to unwind and gel with each other outside work. Playing games and team activities is a great way to build strong team bonding.
The Razorpay Tech Writing team is one of the highest-performing teams at Razorpay, has won the “Espirit De Corps” award year-on-year, and has the lowest attrition rates. The team spends at least 2 hours monthly during office hours celebrating birthdays, work anniversaries or just some time together.
Learning
In this unpredictable world, the one asset which has never lost its sheen is learning. Pave a path for your team to learn, improve and grow in their career.
- A Learning Plan for New Hires helps newbies to understand what their next 10-15 days will look like and get integrated into their existing documentation processes easily.
- A well-structured training plan can help create a smooth transition of the new team member to a productive team member sooner with fewer errors.
- The team members can refer to these training documents at any time and can self-help.
- Learning should be continuous. Create a learning path for each team member in sync with their aspirations and what the organisation can offer.
Measure Team Performance
Reports are crucial to track the team’s progress and how each team member contributes to the team’s success.
- Track numbers and generate reports periodically to measure progress, validate assumptions and finetune your content strategy.
- Data and reports help create healthy competition among the team members, pushing each one to excel.
Appreciation and Rewards
Who does not like a pat on the back? A few words of encouragement and appreciation: acknowledging good work can go a long way in building great relationships and bringing out the best in your team.
- Appreciate hard work during 1-1 discussions, team meetings and larger forums.
- Work with your HR and build a Reward and Recognition program and a fair and transparent Appraisal mechanism.
- Celebrate work anniversaries and milestones.
Image source: https://www.hifives.in/what-are-the-benefits-of-an-employee-rewards-and-recognition-program/
Closing Words
In my experience, while each of the points mentioned above is critical for the success of your team, the most important is connecting regularly with each of your team members and having open and fair communication. Sometimes, things look great at the surface level until we dig deeper. You may have the best tools, systems and processes, but if your team member is dissatisfied, the outcome will be sub-optimal. Soul-connect with your team to understand their aspirations and help them grow. A happy and content team always delivers!
