A good team can always help an organization progress in any department the team is working in. But team size is highly important when it comes to productivity. A smaller, more compact team is a better option for efficient work.
Let’s learn how to start making waves in your efficient small team. But first, we should get a detailed look into why a smaller team size is better.
What Are The Benefits of Having a Small Team?
1. More Engagement
In a smaller team, each member is more connected to the other and more satisfied with the work output.
When more people share the same task, they feel less validated because their contributions can feel less valuable. This phenomenon is known as “social loafing.”
With a smaller team, you avoid social loafing, and your team has more engagement.
2. Better Communication
This one is obvious, but a smaller team can maintain better communication among members.
Team communication is the first and foremost important part of the process when you’re going for development using agile methodology. When you’re working with a compact team, you’re aware of the responsibility and roles of each individual, giving you advantages for tracking the overall project progress.
With a smaller team, you can enjoy the benefits of interacting with each team member about work. You can get more detailed reports, take more time to communicate with each team member and improvise on an existing plan.
3. More Innovation
Bigger teams fail to critically evaluate ideas because a large group of people will only consider the majority and be done with the results. But the same is not the case with a smaller team.
In a smaller team, everyone can and will voice their independent opinions and challenge each other’s beliefs for the better. These incidents can create a situation where the decisions made by the team are more thought-out.
4. Tight Collaboration & Strong Support Network
The more a team size increase, each team member feels that support is less available each time. This loss of support is not just from the other team members but also from the team leader, project manager, or higher-ups.
In smaller teams, team leaders can provide ample support to reduce stressful experiences and promote better performance.
5. Better Flexibility & Autonomy
Smaller teams are far more flexible with their work processes since they frequently change roles and can take a different approach each time with their development process. The team has less fear of failure and more trust, which only increases the team
‘s autonomy.
A great small team’s performance can even outdo a larger team’s performance.
15 Tips To Maximize Productivity Within A Small Team
1. Don’t Hold Meetings Unless It’s Necessary
Too many meetings in the traditional office culture give everyone a false sense of productivity. But in reality, the additional time spent in the meetings only keeps the entire company from being more productive, and it’s time to break out of the traditional company culture.
Only hold meetings when you have a clear goal to cooperate with the whole team before reaching. Without a clear goal, a meeting only distracts the project teams from doing actual work and wastes time for the business leader.
2. Make The Most of Each Meeting
When you have a small team, you can communicate with them and share your key findings within a really short amount of time. Once all the work is done, you can use the additional time to maintain less formal communications.
With these casual interactions, you can increase the morale of your employees with encouragement and constructive feedback on their progress.
3. Provide The Right Tools
A team must have every possible tool related to their work ready. When your team has the required tools for the job and the proper training and experience, your entire team’s productivity goes up rapidly.
As the team leader, you must ensure the team is updated with the latest tools and gears that fit their priority tasks.
4. Communicate With Expectations
Communication is a must if you want the whole team to succeed. But of course, the communication has to be done correctly with the right expectations in mind. Ensure the 5 expectations are met whenever the team members are communicating with one another.
- Must be Coherent
- Must be Concrete
- Must Be Clear
- Must Be Courteous
- Must Be Consistent
5. Mainstream Feedback Culture & Make It Unbreakable
A feedback process must be incorporated into the work cycle if you want the team to improve and succeed. Feedbacks come in the way of performance reviews and constructive feedback. When you’re constantly helping your team to improve, they’ll feel more motivated to improve and be more productive.
Remember, when starting with a small team, you may not have much to go on aside from the passion of the individuals. Keeping every team member motivated and creating an environment of trust with a constant culture only ensures a higher success rate.
6. Reward Success With Incentives
No matter how much people love work, the motivation disappears without a proper reward. You don’t need fancy statistics telling you people like rewards for doing things. It’s just how our brain is made up to be.
There are several ways you can offer incentives to your employees, including:
- Cash
- Time Off Work
- Lunches
- Dinners
- Event Tickets
- Free Vouchers
- Career Advances
7. Define The Roles And Clear The Goals
In a small team, everyone has a vital role, and they must play their role to the fullest if you want the team wants to get anything done. When you define everyone’s roles and individual goals, it creates a sense of responsibility among everyone.
When people know exactly what they are doing, they can make better decisions and are accountable for their duties.
8. Allow Flexibility And Maintain It
In a relatively smaller team, everyone has to take on more roles than one to keep the wheel turning. All these people are already overwhelmed; you don’t need to make it worse with micromanagement.
Instead, offer each person complete autonomy and flexibility. Allow them to try and test out different things and let them decide what tasks they are ready to take on shortly. It will motivate all the employees to reach newer levels of expertise.
9. Utilize Automation & Outsourcing Wherever Possible
When your team already has too much on their plate, you can ease their burden by automating the work process wherever possible. There are a lot of free tools available on the internet that can reduce the workload for every team member, even if it’s just a little.
You can always outsource part of the work to a reliable third-party vendor within the same industry for larger tasks that cannot be solved with simple web tools. When you outsource your work to save your in-house team from being overwhelmed, the team can stay focused on the objectives they were originally hired for.
10. Manage & Track The Time The Team Spends
Time tracking is important to know where the time is going. When you’re counting the hours, you can evaluate the employee accordingly. You can use any time-tracking tool that suits your business plan.
11. Write Everything
We shouldn’t rely on our memories alone in a world where our attention spans are shorter than a hummingbird. No matter how efficient the team is at remembering things, mistakes can happen, and anyone can forget crucial details.
Make it a habit for everyone, including yourself, to write everything down. Keep the document in a place that anyone can access at any time.
12. Set Realistic Objectives
No matter how top-notch your team and time management skills are, no one can achieve a ridiculous outline with a small team and limited resources. Set logical objectives and deadlines that the whole team can reach without delaying them too much.
Shooting for a goal that is impossible to reach with the current facilities will only demotivate the team.
13. Appreciate Everyone And Recognize Their Efforts
As a team leader, you can be the reason for making or breaking the mindset of any individual in your team. Always remember to recognize everyone’s efforts and appreciate them. This way, everyone on the team feels validated, which motivates them.
14. Promote Work-Life Balance
Extra pay from extra work can be lucrative at times. But everyone should remember that the human brain needs rest too. And to do that, one must take a nice little break from the constant strain occasionally.
Promote work-life balance in your workplace so every employee feels well-rested and rejuvenated.
15. Resolve Conflicts As Soon As They Arise
There will always be conflict in the workplace. It can be disagreements between team members, hurdles along the lines of development, etc. But as a team leader, you cannot shy away from conflicts or ignore them because “it’s not your problem.”
Ignoring a problem only allows it to grow larger; any problem can be a possible detriment to the project. So you should always make it your goal to resolve all conflicts whenever they arise.
To Wrap It All Up
Working with a small team eliminates the hassle of managing a much bigger team. But you must know all the right tricks to create an efficient small team and boost their productivity. Your leadership style will determine how well your team goal is met and how much they improve from experience.
FAQs
The size of a small team depends on the specific project or task at hand but typically ranges from 3 to 12 members.
Foster a positive team dynamic by encouraging open communication, setting clear expectations and goals, providing feedback and recognition, and promoting teamwork and mutual trust for maximum team performance.
Delegating tasks should be based on individual strengths and expertise while ensuring that the workload is evenly distributed and everyone clearly understands their responsibilities.
Ensure efficiency by setting clear goals and deadlines, establishing streamlined communication channels, and regularly assessing and improving processes and workflows.
Maintain momentum by regularly assessing progress and adjusting goals and processes as needed, providing regular feedback and recognition with regular check-ins, and promoting a positive and motivating team culture.
