Improving Teamwork Effectiveness

The best ways to improve teamwork effectiveness in a modern work environment are to open up the lanes of communication and allow employees to work on what they find interesting. Common office design for the last two decades has involved separating individual employees with walls, doors, and tiny cubicles with no space for visitors; this stifles the communication and idea-sharing between employees that allow creative growth and productivity. According to Desiree J. Hanford of Facilitiesnet.com "when it comes to fostering teamwork, there's no one template that applies across all organizations. But more and more companies are pushing harder and harder to encourage open communication and spontaneous idea sharing." This involves tearing down the walls and doors in the office and creating common areas for different parts of the team to "run into each other" such as a break room or the drinking fountains. When your designers are working closely with your programmers, products will improve as a result.

Assigning employees to tasks regardless of interest level tends to result in team members who are disinterested or not putting in a lot of effort; the remedy is to allow employees to choose what projects they work on. This does have potential downsides depending on your company and may not fit every situation; however, the game developer Valve has exploited this idea very successfully. "Each person decides individually what he or she wants to work on. This freedom doesn’t just apply to choosing day to day tasks, but even in selecting and forming teams and projects. The desks at Valve are all on wheels, enabling workers to move to new projects as they see fit." says Jeff Wofford of jeffwofford.com. Valve has become famous for it's high quality products, and an open and collaborative environment are a big part of the reason why.


References:

Hanford, D. J. (2012, August). Collaborative Workspaces Encourage Communication, Idea Sharing, Flexibility. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Facilitiesnet: http://www.facilitiesnet.com/designconstruction/article/Collaborative-Workspaces-Encourage-Communication-Idea-Sharing-Flexibility--13385#

Wofford, J. (2012, May 2). Is Valve Too Good to be True? Retrieved March 6, 2013, from Holy Ghost Stories: http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=943