Innovating at the Speed of Teams – 2021

19 Jan Innovating at the Speed of Teams – 2021

I often teach a class called Innovating at the Speed of Teams; a form of Simulation Powered Learning (SPL). It focuses on ways to decrease time to market. That is improving the speed high-performance teams work and make decisions to accelerate the process of innovation and approval.

Working at the Speed of Teams

Regardless of what software or tools you can buy, all processes work at the speed of the team. This is true no matter what technology, project management system or team experience is involved.

The focus of the class or webinar is in helping team members understand what’s processes and making changes to shorten time-to-market. Usually, these are true “Ah HA” moments for leaders and team members.

Leading Teams at High-Speed

High-performance teams address and solve each of these key areas to ensure speed-to-market:

• Goals and Objectives – Creating short-term, continuous high-priority goals and objectives, then dividing projects into short, mid and long term goals. Short-term can be less than 30 days, sometimes as short as one.
• Roles and Responsibilities – The focus is on clear differentiation of roles to ensure no turf wars, thereby eliminating issues affecting team cohesiveness and performance.
• Barrier Identification – Helping people understand the barriers to people, processes and structures, and developing effective contingency plans around the barriers.
• Interpersonal Relationships – Teaching how high-performance teams understand and remain flexible to adjust to behavior styles and personalities. This allows understanding to better communicate and work together.

Innovating at the Speed of Teams

High-performance teams require a high levels of training, expertise, and cohesiveness. High-performance teams provide faster and better results in significantly less time. The key is finding the right set of team members with the skills and desire to stay with a team for long periods of time. Teams members can change as long as new people have the skills, ability and will to learn and contribute. Applying these best practices helps ensure better, faster results for all teams.

For more information, contact me, Rob Beachy, CTO at Axiom rbeachy@axiomcom.com.

For more stories on innovation, read our post Smarter, Faster, Better: Accelerating Outcomes.