How agile communication improves team effectiveness

Agile communication is today one of the biggest challenges in a team setting. While new technologies make communication easier, it does not mean that it is more effective. Even sometimes it generates more obstacles than before, what can we do to improve it?

Agile teams survive by making decisions quickly and considering the opinion of all team members. This can only be achieved by creating an environment where communication is continuous. Agile communication goes top-down, bottom-up, from an employee to another one, to other teams, to the customer or supplier or to the community. Unfortunately, continuous communication is not common in every company. To get to a different group you may have to be catios first and contact the supervisor in charge before getting to the right employee. Employees are afraid to express their ideas, meetings are only used to inform, not to share and collaborate, and leaders try to reduce feedback sessions to the required by the book, that is once a year.

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Performance evaluations

In traditional companies, performance evaluation is usually annual. During the year, there is usually no specific feedback, unless there is a task change or a wake-up call for inappropriate behavior. Thus, the performance evaluation becomes a threatening moment, which defines in an hour the present and future of the employee. And the worst part is that, at that moment, situations that happened months ago are evaluated, which frustrate the employee because he can hardly do anything to change them.

Agile organizations instead promote constant feedback, which allows changing behaviors before it’s too late. Communication between peers is promoted. Some companies do not have any formal performance evaluation, the leader provides feedback at the time it is necessary, there are no requirements. Other companies simply have informal conversations once a year with the entire work team to focus on strengths and opportunities for improvement. In Buurtzborg, (a nonprofit organization for nurses from the Netherlands with more than 7,000 employees) feedback is provided in groups of 3. Each team member prepares his own evaluation, plus the evaluation of his other two partners. They talk about each other’s evaluation and agree on strengths and improvement opportunities. The goal is to make the feedback more frequent, more diverse and less threatening so that behaviors can be modeled more effectively.

Improving meetings effectiveness

The typical day of a manager is 70% meetings. With customers, with other managers, with directors … and what about the employees who are in the production line or who serve the customers? They are almost not called to participate in these meetings, because the meetings are to inform results and to plan. Traditional structures demand too much from a few, and too little from the rest.

In agile organizations instead, meetings are to collaborate and ask for help. There are a few meetings, but they occur at all levels. As teams tend to be multidisciplinary, different levels and sectors work together continuously. In the same team maybe there is a salesperson, an engineer, an accountant and an operator. As they work together continuously, specific meetings are brief, frequent, and are structured with clear objectives. A 15-minute meeting is very common every day at the beginning of each shift. They are called “standup meetings” because nobody sits-down. The meeting is probably at the production site, to facilitate interaction and focus on the issues at hand. No phones, no laptops. The objectives are to identify the potential problems of the day and get help to solve them as soon as possible. Meetings ad-hoc may occur if a particular problem arises that requires immediate attention. Decisions are made at these meetings, so it is important that those who are closest to the problem are there. Everyone must feel safe and empowered to participate.

Visual communication

Technology helps to make communication easier, but sometimes the old paper works just fine. In order to facilitate access to information, companies are trying to communicate sales, customer data, project status and pending tasks on whiteboards, banners and flipcharts to make sure everyone has immediate access. Discussion in teams is easier when everybody sees the problem from the same perspective. When in traditional companies, information is power and must be kept a secret, in agile companies information is nothing if it is not analyzed as a team. Each member can provide a different point of view, so the more the merrier.

RECOMMENDED TRAINING: The Agile CARE leader

Have you ever estimated how much time is wasted in approving an idea or sharing the results of a project? Agile communication in companies is vital to build a we culture that promotes teamwork. It improves decision making, motivates team members and solves immediate problems. Contact us if you have any questions on how to take your communication to the next level.

Lu Paulise

luciana@biztorming.com

@lupaulise

Biztorming Training & Consulting

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