Playbook: How To Manage Teams (PM)

This playbook was made with ♥️ by Michael + Nyla + Taira.

Personal Note: "We PM'd this cool cohort Covid-19 Master Guide project and thought we could share our best practices with you guys. Hit us up with a DM if you have any questions, or if you wanna talk about this insanely awesome guide. <3"

Sections:

Set a 🔥 Mission - What is the purpose of the Project?

The mission of the project is 🔑 — the mission you set determines the outcome your team will create. Ask: What's the purpose of the project — then set standards + systems to optimize the mission, and make sure the team is aligned on it.

Example: Educate as many people as possible on the COVID-19 crisis

🤷‍♀️ Be Clear on the Whys

Always be clear on the "Why?" for every single team member. As a manager, your job is not to excite people, they must build a deeper connection with what they're working on. They have to excite themselves and create their own burning desire to work. You're the multiplier that will allow people to achieve their full potential, but if they don't want it, multiplying by 0 is still 0.

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Mission driven > excitement

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🧠 Pre-Post-Mortem + 2nd order thinking

In order to plan + predict where you can improve, it's essential to predict where you may go wrong. When you outline the areas that might lead to your downfall or miss your standards, set action items to prevent them from happening.

Ex. People in your group don't know each other/do not really get along, set a meeting for you to get to know each other better or enforce a positive culture. Hang out together, go get coffee.

A lot of times people in your group have other priorities, make sure to establish a timeline that everyone can follow. Refer to "Accountability". When you get an understanding of who you are working with, you have a better idea of what might go wrong. It's so crucial to gain data points before you set up the possible things that could go wrong, or you might be wrong about that itself.

Realize sh*t is gonna go wrong. Always assume worst case when there is huge uncertainty & create backup plans.

Example: One of the PMs wasn't sure Person X would finish their video on time. Instead of waiting for him to finish, the PM took over and re-did the video from scratch & completed it. (It turned out, he did complete the video but it was low quality & was 1 full day late)

👭 Set a good culture

Culture is how you react to seeing standards, and it's crucial to get your group to have a good vibe. Not only do you work better together, but the productivity, quality, and outcome for your group are considerably higher.

Setting a good culture comes in 3 parts:

1) Start off by sharing goals + communicate 💭

Energy is literally contagious —> If you want people to be excited, you have to be excited too!

Right from the first meeting, you must communicate your ending vision/goals for the project and how important everyone's role is in the project.

Outlining importance and having organized meetings + good communication shows legitimacy and shows that you put time into something. As a leader, people follow in your shadow, and you are the one to set up the ideal traits your group should embody.

2) Have daily syncs + updates 📓

Send out a google calendar invite for each meeting, and provide a brief agenda + time allocation for each sync to make it concise and effective. It's important to set up a good culture in your team by seeing what they are doing. It helps to talk about things to overcome problems and reinforce standards and reminders routinely.

3) Be an Activator 🗣

If there is an issue you have, a new idea you were thinking about or a question you had, voice it to your team. They are your team after all, make sure they know you value their opinions. Collaborative environments always work better than inter-competitive ones.

Ex. While moving into a plan for an idea, you suddenly think of a far better idea. Share that with your team on Slack and see if it's possible to implement it/ be inspired by it.

📒 Delegating Tasks

When you are delegating tasks there is 3 things you have to do:

1) They have to feel ownership 🤗

  • The person that you are delegating the task too needs to feel like they own this task. Nobody else is going to do it for them! It is theirs to complete!

2) They have to feel accountable ⏳

  • Outline how important their part is and why you gave them the task you did. A bit of an ego-boost for them, and eventually more dedication towards it because they see you being thoughtful. They don't want to tarnish the cool reputation you gave them.

3) Make sure your expectations are aligned 💬

  • The expectations of quality, communication, deadlines etc have to be alligned between you and the person you've delegated the task too. If you don't allign these things in the beginning poeple can make assumptions and the quality of the final output won't be the same.

💪 How to hold people accountable + Brutal Honesty

Know who you are working with.

The first thing you want to do with setting people up to success is to help them realize that their job matters a lot. Peer pressure works.

There's a few things you wanna do right off the bat:

1) Set a timeline ⏰

Dates for actually things that are due, for you and other managerial people/actors

2) Set a group timeline 👥

Dates for which the group you are leading should be done, usually a day or two prior to the actual deadline. Always plan for the worst-case scenario + give yourself wiggle room for task completion. Or else, you finna be real stressed bro.

However, what if they don't meet these deadlines? This is so common that we created a new sub-section, here's how you deal with it:

IMPORTANT - Removing Social Inefficiencies & How to Have High Standards

Don't be afraid to be brutally honest, don't be afraid to push your teammates, don't be afraid to call them out, especially when they have bullshit excuses.

If someone doesn't meet your standards, hold them accountable and have an honest conversation with them.

Note: We have always been trained to do what's "polite" or what's "socially acceptable".

If you've been a PM, you've experienced a situation where someone doesn't meet your standards either because of their output or their mindset. The majority of people chose to hold back on criticism due to trying to be polite. That's why the majority of people are mediocre.

💩That's bullsh*t - Remember, we have HIGH STANDARDS for people here in TKS, never be afraid to be brutally honest if you know it will help them in the long-run. #antifragility #seekfeedback #brutalhonesty

Furthermore, when you don't call someone else out - it often is not because you want to be "polite", it comes from your own fears & giving too much f*cks for what others think of you. Those fears are irrational.

The intention of your message is what matters, as long as you try your best to deliver it in the most assertive way (which sometimes still inevitably comes across as rude), it's up to them to interpret it and grow from it. - (use common sense ofc and don't purposely be a d*ck, again, intention matters. Maybe ask them for feedback on how you could've been more assertive)

🔑 Action Item: Next time when you hold back on saying something that you know will help someone in the long-term, say it. Use discomfort as a mental trigger to practice brutal honesty. — and if they have high standards for themselves, they will appreciate it.

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Honesty > Politeness.

🧠 Setting up Supporting Systems

Work backwards: envision the outcome, build systems to ensure it happens. Think about how to ease communication, minimize errors, and maximize quality.

Example: For our COVID-19 Project, we had 6 teams, in which each team picks one person to create a video, and another to create an article. Then everything gets compiled into one master doc.

Supporting systems we built:

  • An #covid-article slack channel for article writers to cross-communicate + another PM within article channel to keep everyone accountable.
  • A #covid-video slack channel for video creators to give feedback to eachother and share good video resources, filming tips etc
  • A channel for PMs to talk to each other when we aren't on a sync

Note: People naturally hack systems → Set a system to maximize the original mission.

E.g. schools are horrible at this, the purpose of schools is to learn, but the marks system is optimized for memorization. Align the purpose and your system.

⏰ Be #ONTHEBALL

There is 2 parts / reasons for being on the ball:

1) Your behavior impacts your teams behavior 👪

  • Energy is contagious!
  • If you are manageing a team of people, your behaviour will impact the behavior of your team members. If you are on the ball your team will resonate with that and apply it to themselves as well. This is a really good was to ensure that your team is #ONTHEBALL.

2) Your job is to guide people towards the end goal 🎯

  • You need to be available all the time! As a manager it's your job to help people through the problems and guide people towards the end goal. To do this effectively you can't be overly busy! You have to be available to anwser everyones questions and help them work though all the problems that happen. If you are too busy to answer people, make syncs, get updates or even read peoples updates, your end result won't be good because it's your job to do those things.

🤞 Forget Fairness

The goal is to meet/exceed your objectives. One pitfall preventing you and your team from achieving your goal is the idea of "fairness" which is perpetuated by our school system - Everyone must do the same amount of work (hint: communism doesn't work). What's fair is often NOT effective. People have different abilities, some will be better at a task than others. Let people play to their strengths and forget the myth of "fairness".

You're on a mission, do everything in your power to make your vision a reality. - This is not a school project, you have sh*t to get done & expectations to meet. (even if it is a small project, don't treat it like one, train that leadership muscle).

And don't feel bad for believing in this & being unconventional, because we're NOT mediocre people, have high standards: #antifragility #seekfeedback #brutalhonesty

^Note: See section "IMPORTANT - Removing Social Inefficencies & High Standards"

Ex. If the task is to create a video, look at who has done the best videos in the past. Don't choose someone randomly or because they have nothing to do. Choose the person with the experience and the skills.

🌟 BONUS: How to 10X Expectations

As the leader, you set the expectations. At TKS, we set high-standards and we reject mediocrity. Success is not meeting expectations, it is exceeding expectations.

Once you set the mission, you get to choose how far you go. Every instruction for a project gives you the compass for where to go, it's up to you to define how fast and far you run.

If you want to 10X expectations keep these guiding rules in mind:

  1. Don't compare yourself to other people - They only limit your imagination
  2. Break high standards - Forget extraordinary, what does extra-extra-extraordinary look like?
  3. Brainstorm crazy ideas that maximizes the mission - Pick what makes sense, execute on it.

Example: For the Kidogo challenge, Adara & Ruhani did not just settle on a slide deck, but made videos and playbooks!

Lastly, remember YOU are responsible for the end result of the project. You're the frickin CEO of [insert project name].

Be grateful for this opportunity and maximize your own training.

Follow all rules above and you'll go far.

If you have any feedback or suggestions msg Michael Ye, Nyla Pirani, or Taira Metha on Slack/LinkedIn/TKS.life

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If you enjoyed this playbook, you'll also love this resource: Atlassian Team Playbook
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