Team effectiveness initiative to build a sustainable work environment

The client, a struggling large application expert team, inside a large IT organisation, suffered numerous personnel changes and lost their ways leading to very low ratings of their work environment and trust in leadership. We were tasked to improve their way of working while also empowering their engagement and sense of purpose during work.

We began by investigating the root causes of the poor level of ratings in the employee survey along with 1on1 interviews with all employees. We quickly pinpointed two major areas of concern. These were a lack of personal development and lack of work clarity as the team was working with 5-6 different work management tools, which were not durable at this time. They needed one solid tool to plan, follow up and evaluate the outcome of their work on a weekly basis. The method and tool that we used, in this case, were an OKR-plan. Which stands for objective and key results and in order to document the OKR-plan, we used the tool Smartsheet.

The outcome of the engagement was that the team got engaged in thinking and acting for long-term improvements and started working in one tool that provides full clarity of all work ongoing and planned. The team spirit improved and confidence in their own future was lifted.

Here is an example of how an OKR-plan might look like

If you have questions about what we can do for your team(s) in developing their effectivness please give us a call. If you have questions about OKR, there are numerous resources online that you can consult to get an orientation. The philosophy is very much aligned with agile principles. Please reach out to us here if you are having issues with low performing team with lacking structure and planning of work.