Cosmo Spacely needs to determine the productivity of one of his sprocket production groups. This is an easy task. You simply need to determine how many shippable prockets your team produces in a given period.
If you really want to get fancy you can even calculate numbers such as how many sprockets an employee produces per hour or how much revenue a team generates per employee.
Project managers and small business owners face a more difficult task in attempting to measure team productivity in a non-Jetsons world.
Project management software can be used to measure and improve team productivity. However, forward-thinking project mangers need to adopt a holistic approach.
Your business model is, for one, more complex (and real) that Spacely’s Sprockets.
Another: True team productivity cannot be measured solely by output.
A holistic approach to team productivity
Many small business leaders and project managers want their teams to be successful. However, if they don’t do an honest assessment, those teams could be underproductive or fail to meet their organizational goals.
Project leaders can greatly improve the productivity of their teams by focusing on communication, positivity and efficient time use.
Here’s an example. Imagine a top performer who exceeds their personal goal every quarter. However, their negative attitude is dragging everyone down. They refuse to share information with their co-workers.
Although this employee may appear to be very productive, their net effect is reducing the productivity of the team.
Why you need a big picture team productivity report
Your team is made up of a variety of talents that can tackle complex problems. Your team members have bad days and good days. They also go on vacation and have children. Their productivity may slow down while they learn new skills. However, they will soon surpass their previous productivity levels once they are back up to speed.
These are all positive things. These are the hallmarks for a growing, thriving business.
This doesn’t mean you can say “It takes different strokes for the world to move” and allow your team to roam free.
You must still gauge their productivity to identify areas for improvement, support team members who are in need, and reward the top performers. You need to do this in a way that will help your business grow without having to watch over your employees.
You can have specific, metrics-based production tracking in your industry. The metrics you track will depend on whether your team is selling software or writing code or producing sprockets.
This guide will help you identify the five most important elements for measuring employee productivity. However, you also need a broad-based view of your team’s productivity that doesn’t depend on industry-specific metrics. This interactive survey will give you a broad-angle view of your team’s productivity wellness.
What makes a team productive?
We will assess your team’s health using a variety of indicators to measure collaboration, revenue, customer satisfaction and team mood.
These hallmarks are important for gauging team productivity. Let’s take a closer look:
Free report on team productivity
Now that you understand the factors that influence team productivity, let us see how our team is doing.
To see where your team stands, download and complete this questionnaire.
What would you do?
Is there any other indicator of team productivity that this survey did not address? I would love to hear your thoughts on how project managers can create happier, more productive teams. Connect with me via Twitter @AndrewJo
