Software development isn’t something that happens in a vacuum – in a lot of ways, it literally can’t. Any application may be the product of a singular vision, sure. But the results are built on the back of a team of people, putting in long hours and working hard, to bring every element together to form the cohesive whole that it was meant to be.
Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.
Because software development requires many different people to come together to work on different parts of the same product, parts that will then be assembled into a singular application, the presence of a genuine team is critical to what you’re trying to accomplish. Team building is equally so, for a wide range of different reasons that are certainly worth exploring.
Team Building Is About Communication
Simply put, without an environment that encourages open and honest communication, team building – and the larger projects that you’re working on – are finished before they’ve even truly had a chance to get started. In fact, one study from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory revealed that when it comes to predicting the success of a truly great team, one of the most important things to look for was how well those team members communicated during informal meetings.
Communication is necessary to make sure that everyone is on the same page, as well as to make sure they’re all moving in the same direction. Communication – which begins with leadership – is pivotal for making sure that expectations are properly conveyed and to help make sure that everyone knows not just what they’re doing, but why what they’re doing actually matters.
Because of this, any team building experience you try to create needs to focus on communication first and foremost.
A Team Is About Sharing What Makes You Unique With Other People
An equally important ingredient for a successful team building experience ultimately comes down to a matter of perspective. Basically, you need to make sure that you’re building an actual team and not a committee – which itself is administrative in nature and doesn’t work nearly as well in a context like software development.
Every member of a team has some unique talent, skill or other quality about them or they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Team building therefore becomes about A) recognizing that, B) communicating it with other people and C) being willing to share that with the rest of the group. In the best possible scenario, a team member cannot be successful without the help, the trust and the perseverance of the other members. They need to be empowered to contribute those skills and that experience around the clear goal that they’ve all been brought together to accomplish.
Without this key element, they can’t be structured in a way that allows them to work together to achieve that goal. This is why this relationship is one of the core ingredients of any successful team building experience and it’s something that you need to focus on as a leader on an ongoing basis all day, every day, moving forward.
Above all else, a true team measures itself not by the success of any one individual but by the goals that it sets for itself. If one member succeeds, it’s something to be applauded, certainly. But because of the community that is now formed, one person hasn’t achieved victory. They all have.
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