How do you keep your team motivated and engaged in their work, and what strategies have you found to be effective in maintaining a positive and productive work environment?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

As a Software Development Manager, one of my primary responsibilities is to
ensure that my team remains motivated and performs at a high level. During my
tenure at Auctane, I employed several strategies to achieve this:
 1. Identifying Individual Strengths and Interests: In regular one-on-one
    meetings, I took the time to understand each team member's strengths and
    interests. By identifying their 'superpowers,' I could better align their
    tasks with their skills and career aspirations.
 2. Strategic Resource Allocation: When assigning tasks and projects, I matched
    the needs of the project with the individual strengths and aspirations of my
    team members. This not only optimized project outcomes but also ensured that
    each team member felt valued and engaged.
 3. Clarifying Project Purpose and Impact: At the beginning of each project, I
    ensured that my team understood the purpose of their work and the impact it
    would have on the company and our customers. Providing this context helped
    to create a sense of purpose and alignment with the company's goals.
 4. Removing Obstacles: I actively worked to remove any obstacles that my
    developers encountered, enabling them to execute their tasks efficiently.
    This support helped maintain momentum and fostered a positive and productive
    work environment.

These approaches collectively contributed to building a high-performance team at
Auctane, where each member felt motivated and invested in their work on a daily
basis.

Anonymous · Answer

I implement various strategies such as organizing team-building activities,
encouraging open communication, setting specific meeting agendas, and valuing
input from all team members. It's important to create a safe space for everyone
to voice their thoughts, especially those who may be less vocal. I facilitate
platforms like Google Talk, collaborative documents, and Slack channels for
sharing feedback since my team is geographically dispersed. Building empathy
through one-on-one interactions outside of work and ensuring fair distribution
of tasks are essential.

I want to address an incident where an on-call engineer did not address the
issue promptly, leading to it being assigned to the wrong team, causing a delay
in resolution. During the retrospective review, it was noted that the entire
team should be involved in improving the on-call process rather than solely
focusing on the engineer.. To support the on-call engineer, it's essential to
emphasize that seeking assistance is encouraged, whether from me, as the
engineering manager, or other relevant team members. By fostering a
collaborative environment and providing necessary support, we aim to enhance
performance and ensure successful outcomes for the team. This resulted in team
members were comfortable and feel safe to ask for help and admit to mistakes

Another scenario how the anonymous survey enhanced communication and captured
engineer feedback effectively. The survey included questions like: What areas
can be improved? Do you feel assigned tasks are impactful? Is your voice heard
and valued? Are you comfortable seeking help? One key aspect was sharing the
survey results transparently with the team. The recent survey highlighted a need
for more training on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Additionally, it revealed
concerns about meeting times due to team members' different locations. To
address this, I proposed guidelines for decision-making during meetings and
outlined when attendance is crucial, like for complex tasks, and when it's
optional for standard meetings. This framework helped the team feel involved and
secure in decision-making.

Anonymous · Answer

I practice open and honest communication in various settings. First of all, I
spend half portion of my 1X1 in actively listening to my direct report's
concern, feedback and opinions.  If I have any feedback, I provide that in a
timely manner.  I discuss frequently team member's career growth plans with them
and provide them project opportunities to grow. I also recognize team member's
accomplishments both privately and publicly.

Additionally,  I conduct team meetings every week and ask my team to drive part
of the agenda.  Whenever there is any update from the senior leadership that may
impact my team, I update my team about it. Additionally, I ask if anyone is
facing any roadblock and unblock them quickly.  I also set motivating goals and
team charter for the team so it remain focused and engaged.

Anonymous · Answer

To motivate my team - I believe in starting with a purpose and impact of my
teams work. I would then access the superpowers of individuals of my team,
through 1:1 I would gain more insights into their passion and what fields or
areas they want to grow in. I will use their passion and super powers to put
them in an advantage to succeed while they solve the customer problems. At
Acutance, I motived my team by following these steps - along with regular
exposure on the cool work they are doing, I made sure that they get the needed
exposure to be recognized by peers and leadership. I would also conduct monthly
survey on what I need to do to help my team grow and deliver on results, this
helped me guide on things I need to focus and alter course if needed. In the end
I got the highest manager ratings amongst my peers . My team satisfaction was
around 80% consistently. Further, If the team lacks motivation I would bring
this in the team meetings to understand what could I do better, more often than
not - it would be folks working on legacy code or maintaining existing code. The
way I would address is that - i would try and rotate the team members on this
tasks.

Anonymous · Answer

To motivate my team - I believe in starting with a purpose and impact of my
teams work. I would then access the superpowers of indivduals of my team,
through 1:1 I would gain more insights into their passion and what fields or
areas they want to grow in. I will thier passion and super powers to put them in
an advantage to succeed while they solve the customer problems. At Auctane, I
motived my team by following these steps - along with regular exposure on the
cool work they are doing, I made sure that they get the needed exposure to be
recognized by peers and leadership. I would also conduct monthly survey on what
I need to do to help my team grow and deliver on results, this helped me guide
on things I need to focus and alter course if needed. In the end I got the
highest manager ratings amongst my peers . My team satisfaction was around 80%
consistently. This indicated that my team was consistently motivated.

Anonymous · Answer

To motivate my team - I believe in starting with a purpose and impact of my
teams work. I would then access the superpowers of indivduals of my team,
through 1:1 I would gain more insights into their passion and what fields or
areas they want to grow in. I will thier passion and super powers to put them in
an advantage to succeed while they solve the customer problems. At Auctane, I
motived my team by following these steps - along with regular exposure on the
cool work they are doing, I made sure that they get the needed exposure to be
recognized by peers and leadership. I would also conduct monthly survey on what
I need to do to help my team grow and deliver on results, this helped me guide
on things I need to focus and alter course if needed. In the end I got the
highest manager ratings amongst my peers . My team satisfaction was around 80%
consistently. This indicated that my team was consistently motivated.

Anonymous · Answer

To motivate my team - I believe in starting with a purpose and impact of my
teams work. I would then access the superpowers of indivduals of my team,
through 1:1 I would gain more insights into their passion and what fields or
areas they want to grow in. I will thier passion and super powers to put them in
an advantage to succeed while they solve the customer problems. At Auctane, I
motived my team by following these steps - along with regular exposure on the
cool work they are doing, I made sure that they get the needed exposure to be
recognized by peers and leadership. I would also conduct monthly survey on what
I need to do to help my team grow and deliver on results, this helped me guide
on things I need to focus and alter course if needed. In the end I got the
highest manager ratings amongst my peers . My team satisfaction was around 80%
consistently. This indicated that my team was consistently motivated.

Anonymous · Answer

Great teams are motivated when they had a clear purpose in mind - I always try
to start with a customer impact.
At Auctane, at the beginning of every sprint we would look at our northstar - in
my instance to impove the reliability of order processing to over 90% for our
customers. 
Each sprint has a spring planning where the devs would understand the body of
work and commit to. There will also be stretch goals for each sprint.
By collobrating on code reviews and sometimes pair programming I would bring
that team sprit
Regular 1:1 - I would check on their progress and their aspirations - I would
always talk about their superpowers and appreciate what they bring to the table.

Anonymous · Answer

One of my key job as a SDM is to ensure that the team is motivted to perform at
 a high level.
For e.g at Auctane, I first identified the super powers of my team members, in
having regular 1:1 I found out what their interest is and how I can enable to
get there. I then when allocating the resource I tried to math the need of the
project with the strengths and their aspirations in mind. Then at the begining
of the project, I would make sure that my team knows the purpose of the project
they are doing and the impact this would have on the company and our customers.
I would also help unblock any issues my devs in executing their tasks. This
helped in building a high performance team at Auctane.

Anonymous · Answer

One of my key job as a SDM is to ensure that the team is motivted to perform at
 a high level.
For e.g at Auctane, I first identified the super powers of my team members, in
having regular 1:1 I found out what their interest is and how I can enable to
get there. I then when allocating the resource I tried to math the need of the
project with the strengths and their aspirations in mind. Then at the begining
of the project, I would make sure that my team knows the purpose of the project
they are doing and the impact this would have on the company and our customers.
I would also help unblock any issues my devs in executing their tasks. This
helped in building a high performance team at Auctane.

Anonymous · Answer

As a leader of the team I will be on the ground supporting for what they need to
succeed
At auctane, I made sure my team has a clearl purpose on what are delivering and
why it is important to the customer. Furhter, ensure that there is a consistent
process which is followed - by sprint cycle.
Ensure that we commit to what can be deliveried and deliver a high quality
project

a) Giving the prupose of what they are doing is imporant to the company/customer
b) Having a clear target to acheive 
c) Assiging challenging areas where the employee can grow
d) Daily standups
e) Avoid distractions
f) Celebrate on wins big/small
g) Promote the right individuals as a motivation factor to others as well

Anonymous · Answer

To be a positive work environment, I believe that I should develop a a strong
trust fact with all of the team members.  This is critical, and this helps with
rest of the steps I am about to elucidate..
1.  team should generally feel connected with the company and direction.  This
happens by my regular and honest communication about what the leadership
including CEO and board are thinking.  I ensure this via daily standups.
2.  Having an open door policy.  All of my reportees should feel comfortable
that they can approach me at anytime to talk about any issues they may face.
3.  Champion for them:  I should ensure that my team members get the right
credit in the right forums for their work.   I should also ensure that they feel
included and derive meaning in their own work.
4.  Strive for growth:  work with them regularly and help them towards their
career growth.

How do you keep your team motivated and engaged in their work, and what strategies have you found to be effective in maintaining a positive and productive work environment?

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