Team productivity is continuously improved when great work is encouraged and project roadblocks are cleared early on. As a consultancy firm, our staff are rarely in our office together as the majority of our time is onsite with their clients. This poses an interesting question; how does the team stay cohesive and function as one unit? And how is the Manager supposed to know what’s going on? Logistics is not challenge as in today’s world, your team can easily connect over Skype. Each morning at Propel kickoffs with a Daily Huddle that brings the whole team together.
Increasing Workforce Productivity with Only 15 Minutes a Day
The Daily Huddle is a great way connect your team, so everyone is working together towards a common goal. Daily Communication with your team contributes to increased productivity, team work and knowledge transfer. And to boot, dramatically reduces internal emails!
Daily Huddles Accomplish 3 Key Goals Daily
- Effective Management Oversight: The Manager is familiar with and has knowledge of all the major obstacles at the site.
- Robust channels of team communication: A formal communication path and structure is installed between the staff and the Manager.
- Clear goal alignment and team accountability: The Manager drives the team lead through setting expectations and following up with previous day’s activities.
The Winning Recipe for Daily Huddles
To get the most out of your Daily Huddle, it should be:
- Scheduled at a regular time,
- Take no more than 15 minutes,
- and allow each team member to contribute by providing their own updates.
So what should you talk about in your update? Keep it simple.
We ask 3 questions:
- What are yesterday’s results?
- What’s on today’s schedule?
- Any issues or concerns?
Achieving Productivity Boosts Each and Every Day
Instill Continuous Improvement on your team with the Daily Huddle
You’ll notice the daily huddle working to improve your team productivity within a week with these winning strategies:
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Correct Productivity Hurdles Early On by Spotting Them Right Away:
Daily monitoring of Performance metrics and discussion of variances at Team Huddles supports the organization to drive Continuous Improvement. An example of a result would be the number of planned activities from the day before that the team member was able to complete. Use the Huddle to discuss any variances to the targets that were set.
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Achieve Top Results by Prioritizing the Right Projects and Tasks:
Daily discussion of the day’s schedule enables staff and Management to be aligned of the work priorities for the day. This helps with productivity as staff are working on the right activities at the right time. Operational issues affecting the schedule should be discussed and Longer-term operational issues should be escalated.
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Build Team Confidence by Welcoming and Resolving Concerns:
This is the time for staff to raise any concerns that will impede the work being done or staying on track with a deadline. The Manager should work with the team member to resolve the issue, and any issues that can’t be solved should be escalated to a Senior Leader. This will prevent pent-up frustrations within your team and ensure that each team member feels actively supported.
Fifteen minutes at the start of the day can greatly improve productivity in a team and provide the Manager with a greater handle on what’s going on.
I hope that you have found this piece useful in offering an approach towards building a culture of continuous improvement. I would love to hear your previous experiences in driving process improvements in your organization, and please feel free to reach out to me to discuss this topic in greater detail.
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