Ensuring team alignment is one of the key jobs of every manager and scrum master alike.
The level of alignment is something that makes or breaks teams, consequently making or breaking whole companies.
Because of this, let’s give this topic the attention it deserves. In this article, I’ll share my favorite battle-tested strategies for establishing long-lasting team alignment.
What does team alignment mean?
“Team alignment” has undoubtedly become one of the most common catchphrases in the world of product management and everyone seems to assign it a slightly different meaning. That’s why it’s critical to first establish a shared understanding of the term.
I would define alignment as a shared understanding of current vision, goals, and priorities and a collaborative effort to achieve them in an environment of mutual respect.
The exact definition might vary across companies and teams, but that’s okay. The most important part is ensuring that the team has one cohesive understanding of the term. You can’t build team alignment without first aligning on what alignment means.
Key strategies for team alignment
Now to the most important part. How does one build a team that’s truly aligned?
There’s no single solution that’ll work every time. Different teams and individuals require different approaches.
Although I’ll share seven of my favorite strategies for establishing team alignment, treat it more like a recipe book and pick the ones that make the most sense for your context.
Set team principles
Written team principles are an effective and simple method to keep everyone aligned on some key agreement the team has.
However, they work only if they are truly specific. Try to avoid setting principles such as:
- “We help each other”
- “We strive for excellence”
These can easily become another empty motto on the wall.
Instead, discuss with the team specific default behaviors everyone should follow in various situations. For example, team principles could include:
- “Bugs with priority 1-3 go to backlog; those with priority 4-5 are fixed ASAP even if it endangers the sprint goal”
- “At the end of the day, everyone reviews their pull requests and checks any unresolved comments”
I like using team principles for setting up a high-level order of priorities:
I learned that writing down these things helps the team make more autonomous decisions regarding what bugs to prioritize and what type of ideas to pitch.
Regular one-on-ones
There’s no better tool for fostering alignment than having regular conversations with team members.
Although they are a high-effort activity, requiring time, energy, and preparation, regular one-on-one meetings are one of the best investments you can make, not only for alignment.
Some one-on-one prompt questions I use for ensuring alignment include:
- How do you understand the vision/strategy/objectives?
- If you were to explain our strategy in your own words, what would it be?
- What’s least clear about our product strategy?
- Do you feel compelled by our vision?
- What do you think is our top priority right now?
- What do you believe is our most crucial risk or assumption to tackle?
- What do you think about the way product direction is communicated? Is it clear?
- Is there anything we should do differently to achieve our goals?
You’ll be surprised how much misalignment you can catch during a thirty-minute chat.
If you are a direct manager, weekly one-on-ones should be your minimal objective. Otherwise, try to meet everyone you closely collaborate with at least once a month. Trust me, it’ll actually save you time in the long run.
Open hours
The bigger the company gets, the harder it is to achieve cross-team alignment.
In cases like that, one of the solutions I’ve enjoyed the most in my career is holding open hours.
The rule is simple: each team or area holds a regular, open-for-all meeting during which they quickly update everyone on the things they are working on and hold a Q&A session.
If held well, these meetings are extremely helpful for both attendees who can catch up on the team’s work, as well as the host team themselves, as it often helps them learn about dependencies they haven’t thought about.
I’m a big proponent of making these meetings mandatory for product managers and team leaders. These meetings are a waste of time if no one attends them.
Internal newsletter
I like doing recaps of what happened in the recent week and how it impacts our next week.
Not only is it a good refresher of current events, but it’s also a reminder for me to share any product discussions or decisions that happened in the background. It helps me keep the whole team in the loop.
My cadence varies from weekly to bi-weekly to monthly, depending on how much is happening at a given period.
Chase for confirmation
Don’t assume that people read your messages. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.
Life happens. Always chase recipients to confirm that they read and acknowledge the message. It’ll save you a lot of headaches down the road.
One of my favorite tactics in this aspect is the usage of reactions as confirmation marks. Everyone has their own custom emoji, and we use them as a low-effort method of “acknowledging a message”. This way, if a crucial stakeholder didn’t leave any emoji, you know you should chase them to acknowledge or comment on the message:
Automate key information flows
There’s a type of information that is important yet repetitive, thus easily omitted.
In cases like that, use automation to make it happen effortlessly.
Some examples of automation include:
- New pull requests — To let developers know when their review is needed
- Ticket status change — To inform QA there’s new work awaiting them
- Release notification — To align everyone on the most recent changes
- Meeting summaries — To keep everyone up-to-speed
- Changes in key documentation — To avoid using obsolete assumptions
The exchange of information is key to team alignment and automation makes the process easier.
In-person meetings
Last but not least, if you work remotely, ensure the team meets in person a couple of times a year.
Motivational boost aside, in-person meetings help people develop closer relationships with each other. Healthy relationships mean better communication, fewer misunderstandings, and a lesser risk of conflicts caused by misalignments.
It’s hard to build great team alignment without first having healthy relationships in place.
Final thoughts
Alignment is a key ingredient to a healthy product team.
Teams that are aligned showcase:
- Higher productivity
- Better focus on what’s important
- Increased motivation
- Fewer conflicts
Don’t leave team alignment to chance, but consciously implement strategies to improve it.
It doesn’t matter if you decide to focus on one-on-one meetings, open hours, newsletters, regular retreats, or any other tactic as long as you consciously strive to work on improving team alignment.
Featured image source: IconScout
The post Team alignment: Strategies for cohesive and effective teamwork appeared first on LogRocket Blog.