Team coordination is an important factor for organisations that are practicing in the field of business competition. Effective coordination, both internal and cross-functional, results in efficient and effective accomplishment of tasks for the growth of the organisation and job satisfaction of employees. This article seeks to define what team coordination is, explain its significance, types, and a few steps in ensuring successful coordination.
“Team coordination involves the management of tasks and activities with reference to a particular group in order to ensure that every member of the team works towards a common goal.”
Work activities coordination can be defined as the alignment of resources with activities, time, and appropriate skills with an aim of achieving goals effectively. In essence, coordination in business is the effective and efficient synchronization of business resources which involve human resource inclusive, time and technology.
Coordination often goes hand-in-hand with collaboration. But there is a clear distinction between the two. Whereas, coordination emphasizes integration of actions and use of resources, collaboration incorporates efforts to engage in activities actively.
When a team is well coordinated, they work efficiently because everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, avoiding time delay and work duplication. Management implies people and other resources they may need for getting the work done, which is why coordination in teams is important to ensure efficient utilisation of all the resources that are handy.
Team coordination enhances members' communication hence reducing chances of conflict and creating an atmosphere of trust. This is especially important in business coordination, where a failure to convey information between departments as intended can cost the business dearly.
Coordinated teams can better work together and define solutions to problems thrown at them due to synergy and convergence. Coordination within a team who always works in conjunction with other teams can handle sophisticated organisational issues almost effortlessly.
When employees see how their efforts contribute to the goals of the larger organisation, they feel wanted, this increases their work commitment.
When the activities are coordinated well then work produced is of high quality since tasks assigned are done systematically with checks of quality being done continuously.
Various types of team coordination exist, each suitable for different organisational structures and objectives:
This type includes having oversight of multiple activities among the team members on the same level of the organisation, ensuring effective team cooperation. It is usually a feature evident when members of a team occupy similar positions in an organisation.
The degree of coordination between multiple organisational levels including managers and their subordinates is known as vertical coordination. Here, it provides a basis for ensuring that goals formulated at leadership levels are communicated and embraced within the team.
This is the management of activities between two teams which may be in separate departments or separate organisations all together. For example, there is communication between the marketing and the product development teams which facilitates integrated movement towards delivering new products to market.
Internal coordination aims at arranging endeavours within a specific group to ensure that members of the group align their duties and goals effectively for optimum performance. It ensures the understanding of the roles of each member, promoting teamwork.
For coordination within a team to be successful, the use of specific strategies can be remarkably useful. Following are the strategies for successful team coordination:
Start by establishing specific and measurable goals that should be achieved by the team. Clear goals and objectives provide guidance and orientation to every member and assist in comprehending the individual tasks of the group. Specific objectives help the team to track progress and enhance motivation as workers head towards a common goal.
Meetings, updates, and review sessions ensure all are aware and aligned. It is important that there is a good communication channel to prevent misunderstandings or come up with solutions to some problems. It means that participants of the team do not hesitate to express themselves and ask questions during the collaborative process.
Clearly defined roles give clear expectations and minimalises confusion and non-accountabilities. If the roles and responsibilities of the team members in the context of coordination are comprehensible, the work of the team becomes more effective. That way, these roles are checked periodically and compared to the existing goals and objectives of the team to align them properly.
Develop a good relationship through trust so that people can work together in the workplace. People end up enjoying their work more if the mindset for a particular project is cooperative rather than competitive. This culture can be especially strengthened by recognising team achievements and providing an inclusive mentality.
Some of the best modern tools include Asana, Trello, and Microsoft Teams to do task tracking, communication, and scheduling. Thanks to technology, it is possible to regulate numerous business processes, and keep teams spread across vast distances in harmony, making the business processes faster and more efficient.
Reviews of the team are done from time to time so that leaders can be able to detect issues and adjust strategies. Feedback in these kinds of reviews is constructive, helping to maintain the motivation of the team and ensuring that the members focus on important objectives during collaborative processes.
Learn to encourage all the members in the team to be ready to support each other’s assignments. It creates teamwork where everybody must work towards a common goal, and everybody’s contribution counts. This can be supported by leaders through promotion of recognition and reward for the efforts that had been made by the team.
Effective teamwork entails certain skills that enhance a leader’s ability to improve the direction and control of the team. Some of these essential skills include:
Communication Skills: The primary reason for being open and transparent is to reduce misunderstandings and encourage transparency.
Conflict Resolution: Another thing that professional coordinators must do is to delegate tasks and address the conflicts in various teams to maintain the desired results.
Decision-Making: The coordinators should use their rationality to enhance the benefits of the entire team, in a way that they will make effective use of the available resources.
Time Management: In business coordination, time allocation to particular activity is very vital while seeking to meet deadlines and maintaining work productivity.
Adaptability: Fitting into new dynamics or shifting project goals is crucial to preventing the team from getting off track with organisational objectives.
Integrating team coordination activities into the organised routine of the team may benefit by increasing trust, morale and performance. Examples include:
Team-Building Exercises: It is greatly facilitated through cooperative events like problem solving games, group lunch or any form of trust building exercises.
Project Kick-Off Meetings: Scheduling these meetings creates a framework of relationships regarding what needs to be achieved, when it should be achieved and who should be responsible for the achievement of organisational goals and objectives through individual and coordinated effort.
Regular Check-Ins: It is advisable to follow up on the progress on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis to identify issues, and address any challenges faced by team members.
Brainstorming Sessions: It is essential to always encourage group ideas and solutions to promote new approaches and the solidarity feeling within the group.
Team coordination is one of the essential determinants of organisational performance and functionality in a given organisation across its short and long-term business operations. Fostering employee teamwork is a notable concept that organisational management must approach to enhance efficiency with the gratification of the workforce. Given its criticality in the overall business coordination, enhanced team coordination helps organisations to accomplish their objectives and overcome various challenges.
If you’re looking to improve your team coordination skills and unleash your team’s potential, consider taking specialised Team Development and Coordination Courses from the British Academy of Training and Development. These courses are specifically structured to provide you with successful strategies, tangible tools, and crucial abilities with reference to teamwork, communication and task execution.
Coordination is important in teams as it brings order in individual tasks towards achieving organisation’s objectives thus enhancing productivity. It also creates teamwork, reduces conflicts and ensures resources are utilised as intended. Coordination is important in business coordination because it entails parallel department and corporation goals.
When coordinating a team, it involves reporting on and agreeing on objectives, on the roles that individuals in the team should perform and on the ways of communication that should be used. Applying a concrete application like project management tools may help with the distribution and the oversight of tasks in coordination to business settings and time tracking as schedules are typically of great importance in these environments.
The notion of coordination between the two teams means that two or more groups must work together to accomplish a common objective. This may involve reporting, communication, shared platforms and a mutual understanding of the parties about the work of each other’s team. For example, the harmony between two departments could improve the interaction flow within an organisation.
The coordination process in work teams include work identification, role assignment, work tracking, and work replanning in case of deviations. This structured method creates order and helps avoid confusion among the team members and makes everyone focused on the target.