Communication remains key

        From TraveLynn Family

Sometimes we ask ourselves if we are ready for a particular activity. Before I go on a trip, I consider what I will be doing, for how long, and how much room/time I have to pack. I consider with whom I will travel to help understand what unexpected matters I might face and need to resolve. When we setup a team for new activities, we should also be asking, what do we need to pack as resources for the team? 

Every team we build has successes and failures, but what do all teams have in common? They need to communicate with each other to achieve their goals. At the start of the development of a team, they need to pack all the items that will help them communicate. When a team agrees on ground rules that make that specific, then all people know what is packed for the team. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. To that I will add, trips and teams are both easier when you pack the right things.

For any team, I would recommend we add specifics on the nature and style of communication. For each of these, I would want to answer, how should my team benefit? Some of my best thoughts arrive after my team meetings. When I don't understand a member of my team, should I ask in the meeting or after? When I disagree, how should I do it?

For decisions, several factors affect how hard it is to adapt to change, but our teams should be open to change. When an issue arrives in a meeting, we rarely need it to be resolved immediately. I might not be at my best when confronted with something outside my expectations (surprise! - UHF Clip) during my meeting. If we establish a rule allowing us to reflect and inquire further on most decisions in reasonable time, we prime the pump for the necessary adaptation of Senge The Fifth Discipline Chapter V, X.

For disagreement, lack of understanding, and misunderstanding, one of the root problems is ensuring that one’s mental model accurately understood the original statement. To respond, I recommend the Rapoport Rules (aka Dennett’s Rules) to avoids burning bridges: 1) restate clearly, 2) list agreements, 3) acknowledge what you learned, and then 4) express any significant difference in your opinion for the group. This helps the originator remain receptive to refining the idea. For research organizations, using disagreement to highlight assumptions through dialogue or discussion is key to aligning team members (Bennet et al Chapter 10).

Unfortunately, what I have learned is that it is quite challenging to switch from habits to agreed upon terms. Therefore, it becomes easier if the terms are commonly reused, making them part of the organization's routine (noted by Edmonson & Harvey). I recommend every organization provide a standard team charter, which an individual team can augment or vary. Often organizations do this for legal agreements, offering default positions, standard alternatives, and disallowed fallbacks, making negotiating much easier. Per many, available services, easier negotiation is desirable.

 

 

How do you build a useful team?

 While I was in India, I met many people, both at work and outside of it. Aides, mentors, grad students, and researchers from elsewhere in India or Europe. Although it has been many years, I barely integrated any into my research process. Why was that? I believe I failed to see how to engage them with my research (water rights for farmers) beyond whether it was tangential to what they were working on. Although I faced challenges, I rarely discussed my project for them to mitigate my problems from their experience.   

Now, I am in a much more senior position. I need to assign and form teams that don't fall prey to the many problems I had. In my department, teams are sized by importance and resources, not necessarily the extent of tasks. Many teams are built from people volunteered from their office, to serve the greater good, but also because these workers have bandwidth to support. This kind of team building doesn't use the strict business function representation criteria of many product teams (Trott, Chapter 15) or (Cooper, Chapter 3), representing knowledge on delivering a product. To make my teams more effective, I can address deficits found in both my old and current process with best practices from teaming research.

One deficit I had and still see was a lack of regular feedback, even self-examination. In Agile, the retrospective is core to development. In Stage-Gate, rapid spiral development helps build that feedback users need.  As the PI on my grant, I didn't work with my team in India to get that feedback, with a collaborative mindset (Garrett, Chapter 6). In government, the team leads rarely have formal process to give frequent feedback when leading assigned teams; this is oft undocumented and informal. This should be made explicit in charging the team with their task. Furthermore, the teams should ensure they have set aside time to review their teaming and not just produce.

A second deficit was determining the membership of my team. Although I have some knowledge of the skills of people on a team, my initial interviews with my research team in India did not provide that understanding. My cultural divisions, faultlines, were so large, I failed to recognize the diversity and utilize it (Garrett, Ibid). On the teams of volunteered people, we typically only know the role they are in and whatever team roles they may volunteer to fill. Research teams, like product teams, must understand their membership to address knowledge gaps related to tasks assigned. As I assign teams, I will ask them to both draft out the activities they expect or may need to take, list who has experience with each. I could encourage that they further share resumes or CVs help spread that awareness of unknown skillsets and experience.

In short, because of lack of process competency, I failed to utilize my team. Because of lack of experience, I failed to recognize the skills available to me on my team. I want future team to examine what they do and the diversity they have. The best way to do so, is to have the team draft out what they expect, who can assist, and to return to it regularly to inform their path forward. 

Improving project delivery through feedback and aligning expectations

Much of this blog reflects on my time overseas, particularly my work on water distribution and governance. Rivers naturally move water efficiently, but they also carry contaminants. While working on clean water initiatives in India, I saw firsthand how access to water challenged both farmers and industry. At the time, many areas relied on subsistence farming. Some Gram Panchayats (similar to county governments) tried to strengthen local farms by providing shared equipment or organizing cooperative programs.

 One major challenge for the government—though sometimes a political advantage—was information asymmetry. Information about policies, resource availability, and community needs did not flow efficiently. As a result, programs were often implemented from the top down, with limited input from those affected. This gap created space for patronage networks and political favoritism, which weakened overall government effectiveness despite program team efforts. In my own experience, I was encouraged to work with politically connected businesses and officials rather than subject-matter experts suited to my research needs. I don't know if this was the proximate cause for not meeting my research goals, but I believe it contributed.

 Government support for local farming involves many actors working toward the broad goal of increasing regional output and revenue. However, performance is often measured primarily by political voter support. This is a weak metric. It rarely aligns with stated development goals and can undermine good governance by shifting focus away from long-term outcomes and toward short-term political gain. Consequently, team members work with competing priorities, dividing effort and reducing commitment to the development goal, my case clear explanation of government problems for water distribution to farmers.

 Community feedback is essential for improving these programs. Since I left India in 2007, rural use of cellular service has expanded dramatically. This increased connectivity has improved awareness and created new channels for feedback. Panchayats can now track more meaningful, forward-looking metrics instead of relying on post-program political approval. This shift enables a more iterative, agile approach to planning and delivery, rather than a rigid, top-down “waterfall” model that depends heavily on political patronage. Ideally, stronger engagement with public stakeholders will lead to a clearer shared vision and more decentralized, locally responsive implementation.

 While some writers advocate for subsuming contributor individual desires to improve team delivery, most recognize the balance and strive for alignment. Similarly, a program team cannot ignore the needs of the sponsor panchayat or state, delivering to goals to their detriment. Consequently, in areas of existing patronage networks panchayats interested in wider polities need to message transition improve voters expectations for nondiscriminatory delivery. This would align with continuing calls from civil society to both highlight the misuse of power and detail the expected path to resolution. Ultimately, such panchayat programs would benefit from aligning charters and collaboration agreements that provide clear expectations.

 In the past, I have advocated for clearly defined roles and guidelines to help teams establish new programs. However, such structures only work when sponsors and stakeholders actively provide feedback and hold teams accountable. Patronage politics weakened that accountability and undermined the government’s ability to execute its stated vision effectively. Consultation networks from power sharing better support teaming and should be sought. However, the reality of economic fortunes tend to link the party in power more than their efficient delivery of planned programs. After all, why hold anyone accountable if one is winning? Because one won't always be winning, and I want to be winning.