I am heading to Germany next week to present our seminar titled Managing Excellence in Design Team Execution. Interest in this thought provoking workshop has been on the rise!

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Watch for my article in the upcoming issue of Chip Design Magazine titled “Eliminate Unmanaged Design Activities to Improve Project Predictability”.

The first step towards managing team member perceptions is to get them out in the open to where they can be seen. Thanks to one of my readers for making the cartoon at the left available to me. Obviously, the designer in this cartoon feels totally unsupported by management. Is this situation real or only a perception? The reality is that it doesn’t matter because perceptions are an individual’s reality. Ignore their realities and you have no chance of improving the dynamics of your team.

Finding the negative perceptions is not that difficult, you just need to be listening and paying attention to what’s going on around you. Team members will typically complain about others, talk about “them” and in many cases display a competitive nature with other members. Warning signs such as these must be managed to some level of resolution or your team will be riddled with pessimism about openly working with each other.

Many organizations choose to write off the negative perceptions within the team as a fact of doing business. From my perspective this is a choice to maintain the status quo on project execution. No amount of pressure on the team, financial incentives or sacrificial employee terminations will overcome well-ingrained negative perceptions. The negativity must be minimized and it is management’s duty to do so.

How does your organization relate to the cartoon above? Are you thinking that the design team is a bunch of slackers that must be whipped into a higher level of productivity? Or do you see yourself as part of the problem for not facilitating what is needed for the team’s success? If you have been unsuccessful in improving design productivity and predictability to your satisfaction, it may well be time for a radically different approach by looking at mitigating unchecked negativity.

The very first concept in mitigating negative perceptions is the fact that they may indeed be real, or at least have some real components. Real problems will require real actions. As soon as the team sees action towards resolving their issues they will be onboard to help. Participation in solutions to their concerns becomes a priority because “they want” things to be better. I have never seen a team that did not want to help improve things; when it was clear to them the door to real resolution had opened. Get that door open and the process of mitigating negative perceptions will commence with energy that will surely surprise you.

How do you get the door open? Talk to the team and “jointly” build a process that addresses the negative perceptions. They do have the answers; you just need to create an open forum that allows the team to brainstorm. Put the known negative perceptions on the table and talk about them. They are real to the team and they want them to be gone more than you do. Get all the skeletons out of the closet by making use of Discovery and Solution. Exposure of the hidden “Unknowns” through this process will ensure that no stone is left unturned in the quest of finding negative perceptions.

Are you ready for real design improvement? It will take some focused energy on the part of management. More energy than approving a new set of tools or establishing teams goals. It will necessitate the rolling up of shirtsleeves and candidly working directly with the team on the issues that they view as impacting their ability to make projects a success. Healthy fortitude will also be required since you are likely to find that you are part of the problem. I guarantee the final result will be worth a painful, open-minded approach.

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