Community projects bring together people from all walks of life and with different beliefs. It might seem challenging to enhance teamwork in the beginning. However, there are ways to foster collaboration among members more easily. This article will share practices that you can adopt in your community management for better project execution.
Practice the following:
1. Have Shared Goals In Place
Before you start a project, clearly outline the goals of the collaboration in general and that of the project. By sharing the values, stakeholders are made aware of what’s to be achieved in the end. Each member should embrace the set goals and use them as their guiding and driving force in executing assigned tasks.
Community management becomes less complicated with shared and embraced values and goals since there’s no need to remind your team now and then of the vision. You now spend time getting the task to completion. It also reduces the chances of any of you having personal agendas that aren’t geared towards the betterment of your community.
2. Build Trust
Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship, formal and informal. It’s what enables you to allow another person to execute tasks and believe they’ll deliver to the expected standards. It’s crucial to ensure that trust is mutual among the members and with the appointed team leaders.
Build trust by allowing transparency as you execute tasks and in your team. Let there be no secrets regarding your project. Every member should be made aware of any progress made or even setbacks being experienced. This way, everyone feels valued, and it allows for easy communication. Free communication is an excellent tool for collaboration since any member, despite their position, can suggest and solve an issue you’re facing, which is a win for the team.
With trust established, your team can work better with no thought of being undervalued, leading to the faster accomplishment of set goals.
3. Adopt Collaborative Technology
With the rising trends in technology, it’s vital to embrace any collaborative tool available for the better management of your community projects.
Some tools provide a platform in which tasks can be worked on as a team despite the geographical location of any of the members. By having document sharing and cloud storage features, you can access any files for reference. With everyone allocated duties, each member can upload work done for the other stakeholders to see and discuss the same. They have communication features, such as live chats and video conferencing; this provides a smooth flow of communication instead of trying to reach them on call, and there’s no cellular network.
4. Encourage Personal Accountability
This is best enhanced by letting each member be in charge of an activity and ensuring they complete the task.
Let everyone know that they’re responsible for bringing the project to its successful completion. This way, the team can own the agenda and ensure all their activities lead to attaining the same.
Encourage everyone to be accountable for allocated tasks, no matter the result, positive or negative, for better growth and problem-solving.
5. Lead By Example
Community management mainly involves stakeholders and volunteers who work together for a particular cause. In this case, the senior members of the team, partners, team leaders, and other stakeholders should practice a collaborative way of working to give an excellent example to the others. They should work harmoniously and as a team in how they engage with each other work-related or not.
It’s easier for the others to want to be like the seniors since most tend to be role models in the community. After all, you can’t preach water and drink wine.
6. Have Skilled Team-Leaders
For effective execution of tasks, it’s essential to appoint a leader who’ll guide the rest of the team to ensure proper project completion. Therefore, it’s critical to select one with great leadership skills that will assign duties fairly and address any issues or conflict that might arise among the members calmly, among other roles.
It’s advisable to choose a well-respected leader since they are easily listened to. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t allow other members to polish their skills. Let the team leaders have assistants who are trying to enhance their skills.
Depending on the project you’re undertaking, select a team leader knowledgeable in the field of the project for better guidance to the rest of the team. If the project is on cleaning a given water resource, choose a leader who’s a water engineer or environmental specialist to lead the activities.
7. Empower All Members
As previously stated, it’s essential to let the whole team know that they’re valued. Empower your team by giving each member leadership roles every now and then. This builds up their confidence, and they’re able to better contribute to the completion of the project at hand without holding back any information that could better the task execution.
With an empowered team, everyone develops self-drive such that they don’t need to be monitored for them to complete allocated tasks.
Conclusion
As seen, there are easy ways of ensuring collaboration in community projects. By adopting the practices given in this article, there’s a high chance of you executing your community projects faster and efficiently, with all your members actively involved in the process. Embrace the tips and be the change you want to see!