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Plays of the Month: How to tackle common teamwork challenges

Kristen Roth

Teamwork has never been more important than it is right now. And good, effective teamwork? That comes from teams made up of people with diverse skill sets and backgrounds who approach and view the world differently. While differences are essential for top-notch teams, they can present a few challenges, too.

At Atlassian, we’re no strangers to the challenges of teamwork, and we’re always eager to share the struggles we’ve encountered and how we’ve attempted to fix them. Here are a few issues you may have noticed within your own teams, their warning signs, and what to do about them:

There’s a lack of trust
- ⚠️ Warning sign: Team members aren’t communicating, being authentic, or taking risks.
- 💡 What to do: Establish Working Agreements. Create a list of expectations for every team member so you can work together successfully and avoid misunderstandings.
Team goals seem to be unclear
- ⚠️ Warning sign: People are optimizing for different things or jumping from project to project.
- 💡 What to do: Pause your work and get on the same page. Use an exercise like Project Tradeoffs to help your team agree on what to optimize and employ the OKR method to avoid confusion while setting goals.
Personality conflicts
- ⚠️ Warning sign: There’s a tense vibe within the team and debates heat up quickly.
- 💡 What to do: Have the team get to know each other better and learn how to effectively work together by sharing Personal User Manuals. These include sharing communication and feedback preferences, as well as what each person needs from the team to be successful.

Now we'd love to hear from you: What are recent team challenges you’ve faced at work? How were you able to overcome them?

Comments

Andy Gladstone

@Kristen Roth great article.

A recent challenge that we have had, as mentioned elsewhere in this community, is finding the time to meet as a team. With the turn of the calendar to 2022 and a full product roadmap, combined with more demands on our time to meet via Zoom, we are having a hard time coordinating TEAM time. TBH we have not solved the problem yet - and everyone is performing well - so it’s been a nice to have and not a need to have. My fear is that culture will erode without the FaceTime.

Vero Rivas

Hi @Kristen Roth

First challenge to team up on a new project, with each of the remote team members in different locations and generate that atmosphere of trust, team, harmony and commitment on the part of everyone to move the project forward, in the end we succeeded and now we are a cohesive, strong, united team and to go from work we also have times to have fun and enjoy 15 minutes a week just to laugh and talk about trivial non-work things

Cheers

Kristen Roth

Totally hear ya here, @Andy Gladstone. I wonder if incorporating a little bit of "non-business" time into your already-existing meetings might be a good way to keep those friendly team connections going. Maybe a quick, fun icebreaker question to kick off your team meetings?

Kristen Roth

So glad to hear this, @Vero Rivas! 🙌

Ajay _view26_

Thanks for sharing the wonderful post @Kristen Roth !

With remote working its all the more important that all the mentioned challenges are addressed for getting the team from good to great 😀

Marjorie

Nice examples, thanks for the information @Kristen Roth

Kristen Roth

Thanks for giving it a read, @Ajay _view26_! For sure. Remote teams can absolutely be great teams, too!

Pramodh M

@Kristen Roth

My thought on this would be

Don't get intimidated by others, rather if you feel empathy & have friendliness, sharing things, the above-mentioned things are obsolete

Kristen Roth

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @Pramodh M . I agree that a little empathy and friendliness go a long way!

Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_

Very good article. The suggestions are really good.

Srinatha Tondihal

Thanks for sharing the article @Kristen Roth

Karthick S

Good one @Kristen Roth with efficient solutions for the problems!

Darryl Lee_2jimne

I would like to call out the importance and the essentials for one of the Atlassian Values, Open Company No Bullshit, which helps build up strong trust amongst everyone on the team.

Srinatha Tondihal

@Darryl Lee Agreed.

James Richards

I struggle with time zones. As a team over several continents it's really difficult to find times and overlap to meet. This leads to lack of communication.

Elizabeth Barr

This is definitely a challenge, but I think async bonding is still possible. Just harder, for sure!

Wouter Bruinings

Hey @Andy Gladstone

How are you and the team doing some time later? Has anything changed? Have you had more FaceTime?

Tips & tricks :-)?

KR,

Wouter

Andy Gladstone

@Wouter Bruinings the struggle continues. No progress, yet.

Connor_lld39i

With a fully remote workforce I find maintaining communication with my co-workers challenging.

Summer Hogan_q8imea

Great article! Thanks for the advice! With a fully remote workforce and never having met any of my coworkers, I am shocked at how I have gained relationships with my team and gotten them to trust me.

Okan Erdogan_i5ujtx

Great post! I'll certainly follow the steps and make sure we're all on the same page!

Craig Nodwell_7eve9b

Great suggestions, will try to incorporate the steps listed to help

Sakina

great Suggestion!!!

vikram_eupqsc

thanks for sharing the information @Kristen Roth

Its really helpful for remote work nature we are presently going through.

Our team is scatterred world wide but everyday we meet in scrum call which builds teamwork

Vikram P

Dave Mathijs

Hi @Kristen Roth , your answer reminds me of the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

Summary:

Absence of trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.
Fear of conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.
Lack of commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.
Avoidance of accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.
Inattention to results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

Sayed Bares [ServiceRocket]

Thanks for sharing @Dave Mathijs , I will give it a read

Kai Becker

Thanks for the reminder @Dave Mathijs

Shivam Desai_i1poc1

I think with all said, Individual mindsets play a vital role to tackle this thing.

Dan Breyen

Don't always assume that the same people have to do the same tasks when you start a new project. I agree, some people are good at specific tasks, but you also need to cross-train so other people can grow the team's knowledge too.

Dan Breyen

Change is hard. Without buy in, change can also be unpredictable and unproductive.

Paul Wiggers

I have ran the Working agreements play and that helped a lot. I will certainly look into the other plays to see how we can improve inter-team relationships.

Sidar Yarar

Great Article, I think empathy is the keyword in teamwork.

Michelle Yip_vmosd9

Great read, particularly enjoyed the part about how teams can lack the teamwork if we show up without being our authentic self.

A reminder also to our daily selves, that we can also give space for ourselves and others

Manoj Kumar Gangwar

Great article

Anthony Morais

Great post!

Ankush Bora

Big fan of 'working agreements'. Although I would love for teams to do more of that together.

Marcus Jensen_jigxo5

great work!

Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM

about a year and a half old discussion is still very relevant. Great advise here.

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