building people first - lessons in team effectiveness & happiness

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Anant Corporation Anant Corporation Leadership & Management Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness and Happiness

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Page 1: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Anant Corporation

Leadership & Management

Building People First - Lessons in Team

Effectiveness and Happiness

Page 2: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Agenda

• Communication - The Backbone of a

CompanyEvery failure and success of our company has come down to good or bad

communication. How do we coordinate a diverse team over the Internet?

• Leadership & Management / Knowledge -Knowledge creation and distribution is a function in our “Leadership &

Management” responsibility. How were we faring before we changed, what do

we do now?

• Enterprise Knowledge - When we “Woke” Up. When we realized how important knowledge was to our company, we took it

very seriously. This is how.

• Team Building - Team of TeamsSome of us are full time, others are part time. Some of us are employees,

others are contractors. Some of us are onsite, others are remote.

• Building People - Teams are made up of

people. A team is an alignment of individuals and entities. The more we invest in our

Page 3: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Old Boss : Individuals Leading Teams

Leaders : Company

Teams: Department Teams, Project Teams

Customers & Clients

Leaders : Departments, Projects

Page 4: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Communication - Early Days

• Conference Calls

Our company started with 3 calls a week among

3 team members.

• Basecamp / Project Management Tool

We had the cheapest plan to manage internal

and external projects. We decided to use “GTD”

• Emails

We created some groups in our Google Apps.

We mostly used CC’s to communicate, without a

centralized information system.

Page 5: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Communication - Kaizen Feedback from Team

• General Unresponsiveness

Members complained about phone, chat, email

unresponsiveness during business hours.

• Vague / Unclear Tasks

Some people were better at assigning / clarifying

outcomes for tasks than others. More

complaints.

• Availability Expectations

Some people were better available than others

at different times. More complaints, frustration.

Page 6: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Communication - Today

• Singular Communication Pipeline (Client to

Team)

All client issues are managed through a singular

system through one customer service

process.

• Clarity is Contextual to the Work (Team to

Team)

Processes are documented. Tasks have

outcomes. Projects all have a “Mini” project

document.

• Tools for Different Needs (Member to

Member)

Chat, Hangout Rooms, Hangouts, Gotomeeting,

Page 7: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Knowledge - Early Days

• “Check out this link”

We either had the knowledge in our heads or we

didn’t. There was no “team knowledge.”

• Different Document Standards

We had client project documents, but there

wasn’t a standard.

• Basic Onboarding / Orientation

People knew where to generally find things, but

each team member wasn’t “onboarded”

contextually with specific skills.

Page 8: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Knowledge - Today

• Articles on the “Internal Blog” every Week

We read books or executive summaries all the

time. We privately blog about what we learn.

• Several “KB” entries every Week

Everything that can be reused as knowledge is

added to the KB. All learning, all research.

• Links on Pinterest/Scoop.it every Week

Each team has a quota of new links to add to the

Pinterest or Scoop.it - We review on our cowork.

Page 9: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Knowledge - What

Knowledge

Guides &

Resources

Blogs, Links, KB

Assets &

Documents

Files & Code

Structured

Information

Org, Client,

Project

DriveDeltaNutshellLeavesKBWPSourceDriveDB/OC

Page 10: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Knowledge - Corporate

• Strategic / Tactical• Strategic knowledge helps us execute on

the Corporate Strategic Goals (Phoenix)

• Tactical knowledge helps us execute on our

daily, weekly, project, and client tasks.

• Internal / External• Internal knowledge is what is pertinent to

our company.

• External knowledge is what is pertinent to

our clients, market, industry, and sector.

• Explicit / Meta• Explicit knowledge means that it is what it

is.

• Meta knowledge may be a blog or kb entry

about a concept, a book that we’re writing.

Page 11: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Knowledge - Where

Knowledge

Project

Information

Client

Service

Information

Corporate

Guides

Collaborativ

e

Documents

Assets

& Files

Corporate

Resources

Appleseed Services Search

G Drive

Delta

DropBox

G Drive

Delta

Nutshell

Dropbox

Freshbooks

G Drive

G Sites (KB)

G Drive

Workflowy

Evernote

G Drive

DropBox

OwnCloud

Pocket

Leaves

AIC (WP)

Anant (WP)

Page 12: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Team Building - Team of Teams

• Employees / Contractors / PT / FT / Remote

Our company engages ~40 people or “entities”

globally.

• Good Talent is Everywhere / Every time

We can’t profess “Everyone an Entrepreneur”

and not encourage other small companies to

work with us.

• The Criteria for “Good” vs. “Bad” is hard to

set.

We give “exams” before we interview technical

members or teams.

Page 13: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Building People - How we Grow

• Respect for Apprentices as Team Members

We don’t have interns. We have apprentices.

They are expected to become Analysts.

• Respect for “External Partners” = Our Team

We’ve received close to half our business from

people that work with us as contractors.

• Members all have “Mastery” Goals

From apprentices to partners, we are always

learning and we’re always documenting.

Page 14: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Today - Phoenix - The New Backbone

• Yearly - Organizational + Team Phoenix

Shows everyone in the company what are the

most important objectives & key results.

• Quarterly - Member Phoenix

Each member and their supervisor agree to

certain individual objectives & key results.

• Weekly - Individual ACM Goals + Review

Each person has 3-6 goals they are working

toward each day.

Page 15: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

New Boss : Knowledge Leading Teams

PhoenixGoals, Objectives, Results,

Weekly, Monthly, Yearly

Leaders : Team, Project, Company

Teams: Practices, Responsibilities, Project

People: Company, Clients, Members

Knowledge,

Communication

Delta, Documents,

Scrums, Cowork,

...

Feedback

Client Kaizens,

Team Kaizens,

Weekly Review

Page 16: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Best Practices – Some Great Books

• Getting Things Done by David Allen

Good basic standard for having clarity to work.

• What it Takes: Seven Secrets of Success

from the World's Greatest Professional Firms

by Charles Ellis

• The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of

the Learning Organization by Peter Senge

• Harvard Business Review on Knowledge

Management by Harvard Business Press

Page 17: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Feedback & Call to Action

[email protected]

• Worked?

• Didn’t Work?

• Could be

Improved?

Events & Jobs

• Enterprise Tech

Meetup–http://www.meetup.com/DC-

Enterprise-Tech-Meetup/

• Bagels + Coffee–http://anantlabs.eventbrite.co

m

• Apprenticeships–http://anant.us/339

Page 18: Building People First - Lessons in Team Effectiveness & Happiness

Anant Corporation

Contact

Rahul Singh• Click on the Icons Below

Anant• Web: http://anant.us

• Email: [email protected]

• Phone: 1.855.ANANTCO

• 1010 Wisconsin Ave. NW,

Suite 250

Washington, D.C. 20007