In today’s business environment, many of the people on the teams that we manage have more options than ever. They can choose between companies, projects and industries; they can choose when and where they work; and some can even choose if they want to be working at all. Because of this, we are often faced with finding ways to motivate our teams and move away from the traditional command-and-control approach. Our team members are looking for more meaning behind the work that they are doing. Finding those motivators, and keeping the team interested is important to project success. Much like everything else, this responsibility ultimately can fall on the project manager.

 

More than just possessing a need to be motivated, team members are seeing work as more of a two-way relationship, looking for what they are getting out of a task, a project or a piece of work, beyond merely their salaries and employment. They are looking for work that matters to them, or will stretch and grow them in their careers, or work that will have meaning to their personal values. The good news is that most projects have these kinds of assignments. The reason we have projects that need managing is that they have complicated things to do, that make a difference to customers and to the business, and sometimes, to the community as well. It’s up to the project manager to find them and align the team members with the right things to keep our teams inspired to do their best.

 

For a project manager, this means adding a new consideration to work breakdown and task assignment. Previously, all the work that was needed for a project would be defined and delineated in smaller and smaller deliverables, until each was a task that could be completed in a manageable way. These deliverables would then be mapped against available people and resources, and a project manager would seek the most optimal assignments, either for getting the work done quickly and efficiently, or by increasing the capability of the team through cross-training or by providing opportunities to team members. Now, in addition to that, a project manager should look at the tasks, and consider how to best use them to motivate the team. Here are three key characteristics of work that can be used as motivation.

Be Important

Virtually every project has its share of mundane tasks. In fact, when you look at what needs to be done for even the most innovative project, it still has a collection of things that need doing that have been done many times before. This would include simple UI edits, basic design changes, simple accounting and tracking, or creating something like a form for data collection. But just because the task is something that has been done before, or is even something that the team routinely handles, that doesn’t make it any less important to the project overall.

 

I managed a project that was basically a lead generation product; we would find customers that needed certain services and collect enough data about the customer and about the request to properly route them to a provider who could handle it. The work was simple: creating a few web-based forms for collecting contact information and gathering enough information to match the customer to someone on the back end, and then sending out a few emails. But while the work wasn't especially difficult, it was vital to the customers, the providers and to the product. Customers had a problem that they were looking to solve in the easiest way possible; providers were looking for a way to find new clients, which they would then use to grow their business, help pay employees, or just meet their own expenses; and the project was tasked with matching these sets of people together.

 

When viewed through that lens, team members were much more enthusiastic about getting it done. They weren’t just creating a simple form; they were helping people make a living and solving customer problems. By looking at it that way and reminding the team of the importance of the work, they are much more likely to look for creative ways to deliver the project.

 

Be interesting

On the topic of mundane work, it is true that sometimes it really can’t be avoided. From experience, I know that all team members are aware that to get even the most exciting project done involves taking care of several routine tasks. I once described this to a teammate about working on race cars. While certainly, a fast car has lots of power and excitement, and plenty of things to be energized about, no matter the model, it still needs to have its oil changed, tires rotated, and windows washed. Without taking care of the routine parts, the exciting parts can’t exist. But it’s vital that not all the work is mundane if you want to keep your team motivated.

 

Most projects contain parts that the team has never seen before, or that no one is entirely certain how to do, or have something about them that make them interesting or novel to the team. As project manager, it’s important to assign these tasks out along with the mundane ones, so that along with the routine tasks, there exists something new to do, new to learn, or a difficult challenge to solve. Coupling interesting or challenging work with repetitive tasks will help with team member motivation and keep the team receptive to completing the work that the project needs.

Be impactful

Team members have started to look for the reason behind their work more than ever before. That is, the why has become at least as important as the what. This doesn’t mean that every task needs to further some societal cause, but it does mean that the benefit needs to be clearly articulated. For instance, the work can help customers find what they are looking for easier, or it can make the lives of developers or analysts easier, or it can help the marketing department determine if their advertising spend is yielding results. Whatever the impact, it’s important that the team member knows what it is, as the more they understand why they are doing something, the more they can understand why they are completing a task.

 

Beyond knowing why a task is important, the team should be given some insight into why it matters, as well. I once had a boss call this the “What and the So What?” Knowing that what they are working on will help the marketing department is great but knowing why that is important is even more important. The team members should be able to draw a line between the work they are doing, and some company organizational goal, and be able to understand how the task helps reach those goals. Even if the impact isn’t exactly related to a company goal, it should have some relevance toward company or individual principles. For instance, creating a better customer experience, or building trust with our stakeholders, or eliminating unnecessary waste from a process and helping the environment. A developer who has a full view of the what, the why, and the “so, what” will better understand their task, and are thus more able to deliver.

The Takeaway…

More and more, team members are looking to understand the drivers of the tasks they are being asked to take on. Understanding the importance of their work is good for their own motivation and lets them participate more fully in their relationship with the project. By understanding the business needs better and being allowed to factor in their own personal needs, a better environment can be made for everyone. With this in mind, to best motivate the team, project tasks should be at least one of the following things:

 

• Important. The work assigned should be important to stakeholders, and even mundane tasks can be important as long as they help the team or organization.
• Interesting. Most projects contain at least some work that is interesting in some way. It can be new, and something no one has done before, or it can be a difficult problem to solve, or it can require overcoming challenges to complete. Interesting work can be used as a motivator for members of the team, even if some of the work is routine.
• Impactful. The team should be given a good understanding of why work is being done, who will benefit, and why it matters. Understanding this will help the team member understand the impact of their work and should increase their motivation to get it done.
• The responsibility of motivating the team can often fall on a project manager. For a project to succeed, the team members should be given the full picture of why the tasks matter, so they can focus on the ultimate impact of their work.

 

Forrás: https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/788253/3-ways-to-motivate-your-team