StartupTalky

Tag: effective teams

  • What Are Fusion Teams and Do You Need Them in Your Startup?

    Digital transformation is accelerating at an astonishing rate. Businesses are changing how they organize and operate. Companies can benefit from adopting digitally native concepts to remain technologically relevant. They must embrace new ways of working to stay consistent with digital advancement. Time and efficiency are vital to creating new digital products and services within specific time frames.

    Many conventional organizations are shifting towards having multidisciplinary teams with various capabilities. Multidisciplinary, collaborative teams are not a new concept in the current workplace. IT professionals have regularly worked alongside multiple departments to create digital solutions. These collaborations have become increasingly common and will continue to be a necessity in the future.

    Currently, digital transformation is being implemented at a rapid speed. These tech solutions are solving an ever-expanding spectrum of challenges and activities. All businesses should ensure that their products and services are ahead of the competition and fulfil customer needs. To achieve this, many companies are opting for fusion teams.

    What are Fusion Teams?
    Benefits of Fusion Teams
    How Are Fusion Team Leaders Different From Others?
    Do You Need Fusion Teams in Your Startup?
    How to Set up a Fusion Team for Your Business?
    Things to Know Before Building a Fusion Team

    What are Fusion Teams?

    Fusion teams represent a new age of value creation. A fusion team combines technology or analytics and business expertise and shares responsibility for both business and technology outcomes. Fusion teams are multidisciplinary and are not grouped by roles and tasks within companies.

    In fusion teams, the responsibility for the solutions they create is shared. Individuals are put together based on results and not on business operations. These teams are formed to digitalize company capabilities. This is done by using technological solutions to achieve business or consumer goals.

    A fusion team is created by putting together many experts from different business areas. These individuals share business goals and relate with their teams rather than their areas of expertise.

    These teams have leaders who go above and beyond the traditional responsibilities of agile product owners. They drive the strategy, planning, and resourcing for their teams, and tend to have full responsibility for results.

    Fusion teams vary from conventional interdepartmental teams in one significant way. They can implement their innovations directly to users since they have all of the expertise required to develop a functional product.

    Projects, activities and responsibilities are distributed effectively throughout the company to run concurrently. This avoids the administrative layer between project creation and deployment.

    Benefits of Fusion Teams

    Fast-Paced Project Development

    With fusion teams, products can be released about 2.5 times faster than traditional methods. This is done by eliminating interdepartmental assessments and middle-level management, which monitors larger projects and causes roadblocks in the development of the project.

    Autonomy and Accountability

    Fusion teams provide complete freedom to respond to challenges and opportunities as they occur. They are also allowed to create products based on the ways they feel will perform the best.

    Autonomy is encouraged and accountability is shared among the team members. If a product is late or fails to function properly, the entire team bears the brunt. Fusion teams enhance both individual efforts and reward effective collaboration.

    Effective knowledge sharing

    Multidisciplinary teams provide better knowledge sharing across the organization by frequently engaging with colleagues. They improve information flow and allow employees to effortlessly learn from one another. Such arrangements enable easy access to information that would otherwise be unavailable.

    Better products and solutions

    Each team includes business specialists, who have industry-specific knowledge and are skilled with all functional procedures. This improves the chances that the solution will provide the intended results.

    When subject-matter experts who are connected to consumers or internal users work on technology, the resulting product or solution is more likely to offer value and foster employee and customer-centric experiences.

    How Are Fusion Team Leaders Different From Others?

    Fusion teams are speeding up digital transformation in a variety of important business areas such as product development, direct marketing, customer experience, operational efficiency, data gathering, and distribution processes.

    Experienced fusion team leaders have good digital discernment that allows them to effectively align team outputs with business objectives. They are responsible for the risks associated with their technological decisions, such as using no-code platforms or relying largely on IT professionals throughout the product lifecycle.

    When it comes to enhancing digital judgement, CIOs play a vital role by giving access to IT subject matter experts who assist fusion team leaders in understanding the impacts of their technological decisions. These are a few ways in which the fusions teams differ from traditional teams.

    Do You Need Fusion Teams in Your Startup?

    The short answer is, yes. Because fusion teams create a solution to improve digital/company operations or customer satisfaction on their own. Organizations with cross-functional fusion teams and business-IT collaboration are significantly better positioned to respond to unexpected difficulties quickly with increased confidence. They can operate efficiently and change directions quickly while generating more value for the company.

    Similarly, low-code and no-code platforms are making citizen development increasingly easier and more accessible. These platforms use drag-and-drop features and cloud-based technologies to function independently while getting integrated with current IT infrastructures. Therefore, they’re an easy solution for startups looking to deliver new applications quickly, safely and economically.

    How to Set up a Fusion Team for Your Business?

    Organizations that are new to fusion teams should start small and focus on relevant problems to ensure early success and prepare the road for future fusion-driven projects.

    When it comes to forming a fusion team, the best approach is to first establish your intended business goal and then assess the existing IT organization to determine current performance.

    You’ll have to figure out where fusion teams might be useful. Management should recognize that different kinds of employees require different forms of management and plan accordingly.

    Implementing a fusion team involves a shift in work culture and the selection of the right business tools:

    • Building a culture of responsibility is crucial. Fusion team members should equally share success and take equal responsibility for failure.
    • The tools that are used in the organization should be used and understood by non-technical team members at various phases of work processes. This typically necessitates a move from high-code, technical platforms and processes to low-code or no-code technological platforms.

    Things to Know Before Building a Fusion Team

    Maintain a small team and remember that a minimal viable team can be as small as three key team members. Rather than overloading the team, bring in outside resources that can offer time and skills on a flexible basis.

    For many fusion teams, low-code platforms are an essential part of their tech stack. These platforms enable “citizen developers” (workers with low or no technical expertise) to build a wide range of sophisticated applications, including automation, digital functions, workflows and processes, and a wide range of other digital solutions without requiring the need for IT assistance.

    Fusion teams provide operational autonomy and enable self-organization and direction. Multidisciplinary fusion teams can provide you with the opportunity to create, operate, and manage digital strategies independently. It aids in process automation, and operational waste reduction, and increases the efficiency of the processes. Also, people appreciate taking responsibility for their work and seeing how it affects the organization.

    Conclusion

    The steep growth of fusion teams is assisting companies in avoiding some of the most significant roadblocks to timely digital delivery, such as a scarcity of digital expertise, and overloaded IT services.

    Launching a new project or initiative led by a fusion team can assist a company in exploring the benefits of the new concept in speeding up the digital transformation process and is probably the right way to go in this fast-paced digital world.

    FAQs

    What are fusion team?

    A fusion team is a team that combines analytics and business expertise and shares responsibility for both business and technology outcomes.

    What should you know before building fusion teams?

    Make sure the members of your fusion team are familiar with low-code platforms and make sure the team is small.

  • How to Build a Great Startup Team? | Tips to Keep In Mind While Developing a Startup Team

    There is a quote that we often hear “Teamwork makes a dream work.” Any startup’s journey to success begins with a great team. The team will determine whether the startup turns into a business model or a thing of the past. According to statistics, not having the right team is the third-highest factor (accounts for 18%) behind the failure of startups and the startup failure rate itself is 44%. There’s no such thing as a startup having a sole owner. If you come across successful startup stories, you will find that they owe all their success to their team. If you’re thinking of launching your very own startup, make sure you have a great team.

    Common Reasons For Startup Failures

    In this article, we will talk about how to build a great team for your startup. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

    How to Build a Startup Team?
    What Must Your Team Be Made up Of?
    Factors to Avoid While Building a Team

    How to Build a Startup Team?

    A team that believes in the vision and works tirelessly to achieve it is an answer that gets an A+. Unfortunately, it is slightly more complicated than that. When we break down what makes a great team, the two things that are extremely significant while building the perfect startup team are:

    The Vision

    It starts with your vision. The teams that are self-aware have fared better than the teams with no clear thought process. Dedication and perseverance are great qualities to have, but if they were the only necessary ones, the failure rate of startups would be less. Everyone needs to be in the same boat, row, and in the same direction that will get you ahead. However, every startup needs an edge.

    It is what makes your crew WANT to row in the same direction and a willingness to work with others to make it happen. In order to achieve this, you have to convince each and every person in your team and make them believe in your vision. Your vision must ultimately result in making your customer’s life better. Every team member must individually feel responsible for that. Only then will they give their heart, soul, and maybe even throw in an arm and a leg to see your vision come true.

    The Hiring Process

    What is the process to hire a dream team? There is neither a rule book nor an HR policy in your case. The process is tough and will send you somersaulting for suitable hires. A potential hire is one with a great attitude. If that person is smart and gets things done in time, recruit them. A likeable personality is a bonus. Scout colleges, browse LinkedIn profiles and network with your circle. Sell them your vision. Define startup roles and responsibilities accordingly. Hiring five managers because they are excellent is a hiring disaster. Take only the people you need.

    However, cooperation is slightly more important than talent in the beginning stages. A team with a tight bond is more likely to achieve success than one in a constant state of the cold war. Never settle. If your vision excites them as much as it excites you, hire them! An important thing to remember when interviewing a candidate is to see if they will stay with you at least until the startup is solid. A good way to ensure that is to have a transparent contract, binding them for a stipulated time.

    That being said, recruit as if you were recruiting for a business and not a startup. That way you don’t have to hunt for a new core team when your startup turns into a full-fledged business. Beware of bad hires. A bad hire in a corporation results in a loss of time and money. A bad hire in a startup is a recipe for failure.

    What Must Your Team Be Made up Of?

    After the hassle of recruiting is over, we have a team. Let’s dissect the team. An ideal team is balanced. If there’s a risk-taker, then there must a speed breaker. The startup team structure should be made up of – a brainiac, a hard worker, a financial expert, a crisis solver, and a leader. These traits are not mutually exclusive and are a generalized set of traits that any startup needs. Your team needs at least one person for each trait.

    Team Dynamics

    The core team is the face of the company. Their personalities and interactions will breed the eventual company culture. That is why initial hiring is difficult and important. A core team for a startup is like a family. The company’s losses and gains are personal to them. Your team must at the very base get along. Connect with individual members and make them feel like family. That will result in their 100% effort. Be open with your team right from the hiring process. Be clear about your expectations of them. It is better to have someone not aligned with your goals quit sooner rather than later. Earn their trust.

    Even if things don’t go well, inform them. Don’t get too caught up in work though. Take time out to enjoy yourselves occasionally. It shouldn’t be all work and no play. Also, continuously monitor and evaluate your team to find and remove inefficiencies.

    Role of a Leader

    We are yet to discuss the importance of a leader. There are a lot of unknowns at the start. A leader must be an idea-generator, a crisis averted, a problem solver, and must also constantly boost the morale of co-workers. If that leader is you, then you better start working on these skills. Soft skills are important as well. Develop a good rapport with the team. If at any point in time, the team loses a sense of direction the startup will sink. The leader must keep them on track.

    Most Importantly, the early stages are critical and can make or break the team. Early-stage leaders are in a position to make the most impact as compared to the later stages, where the company already runs on a well-defined set of factors. A CEO at that point has no major impact on the process, only the major decisions. The leader is also responsible for the kind of image the company projects. If the company has an online presence, then the CEO’s personal opinions if expressed become a reflection of the company’s culture and policies.

    Factors to avoid while building a team

    There are some factors that you should avoid while building a proper startup team and they are:

    • Avoid homogeneity at all costs. Like-minded people rather than minds that think alike. Homogeneity kills creativity. There would be no exchange of ideas as everyone will agree on a single idea. Everyone has the same weaknesses and strengths. There is no balance. Don’t sacrifice diversity at the altar of cooperation.
    • Don’t take the pressure of hiring on your head. If it proves to be difficult to obtain recruits, hire a recruiter. It is a good investment in the long run.
    • Don’t prolong firing a bad hire. Cut your losses now rather than incur them later.
    • Do not reject people who have faced failure. They are more likely to take risks, which is what startups need.
    How to make a great LinkedIn Profile for Sourcing Leads

    Conclusion

    Having said that, there are no ‘building teams for dummies’ or ‘advanced team-building theories’ to get you there. The startup journey is a rollercoaster. Many times, you may have to ‘wing it’. The dynamic nature is what makes it a thrilling journey. Seeing your vision turn into reality after putting in months or years of work is highly rewarding. The journey is as important as the destination and the right team makes it an enriching experience. Remember, your company is only as good as its core team for startups.

    FAQs

    What makes a successful startup team?

    Startup experience, product knowledge, and industry skills predict the success of a new venture.

    How do you strengthen your team?

    6 Ways to Strengthen Your Team:

    • Hire with Purpose.
    • Lead by Example.
    • Communicate Effectively.
    • Ask for Feedback.
    • Team Building.
    • Recognize and Appreciate.

    How do you start a startup team with no money?

    Tips to start a startup team with no money:

    • Stay true to the core purpose.
    • Form a kickass team.
    • Expand your social media presence.
    • Collaborate with established brands.
    • Make every customer feel special.
    • Keep an eye on your competitors.
    • Make the most out of the tools.

  • How to Build an Effective Team in 4 Steps?

    Building a successful team is the foundation of any company’s success. A team brings people together by encouraging teamwork. But the process of team building is not as easy it seems, but it demands a great deal of effort on the part of the leader. Leaders have responsibility to make sure team works well together and remains focused on the right priorities. But there are many challenges that leaders have to overcome to build great teams. Here are 4 steps to build a successful team for your company.

    Everyone has what it takes to become a leader but managing a team is not that simple. Being in the position of a leader, means you have to handle numerous tasks, from managing a team to developing a new leader. It’s for this reason that you need to learn how to build and manage a team in the most efficient way possible without the stress. A powerful and successful company operates with best teams when employees work with a team mentality.

    Now that you get the idea of building a team, how do you do it? Most importantly, what do you need to manage the team you build? There are a lot of team building skills you will need to learn, and four of these essential skills are as follows:

    Skills You Need to Build a Successful Team

    Skills You Need to Build a Successful Team

    A short video clip on Effective Team building

    Good Communication and Feedback Skills

    Communication is the key to the success of any relationship. Having the ability to communicate with your team members effectively will create a cordial relationship among the team members.

    Apart from this, you also need to have the ability to make the rest of the team communicate with each other. If your team members fail to communicate, the entire project fails. The role of communication skills cannot be overemphasized. It’s part of the most essential team building skills.

    Decision-making Skills

    Making decisions are very important for a leader. It’s what sets him apart from his subordinates. Having decision-making skills requires patience and being courageous enough to stand by his judgment.

    Also, decision-making often requires compromise, and sometimes a willingness to give up your own point of view in favor of the decision shared by the entire team. Most of the times, opinions of each team member may clash. It will boil down to you to choose the one that is best everyone and the team.

    Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs for Health Flourishment of Business
    Management strategies and time is the essence of success. These are the key tosuccess. Also, as we know, “time and tide wait for none so make sure you fullyuse all your time and the opportunities coming for you. Considering it astangible or intangible is entirely one’s personal opinion, but when …
    StartupTalkyAyush Verma

    Listening and Caring Skills

    One of the best team-building skills you will need to have is the ability to listen to people. Not just listening to what they say, but the meaning behind their speech. Everyone wants to know you care for them and also understand their situations. Having listening skills will not only save you a lot of stress but will also help you build rapport in your workplace.

    One more thing you should have is the ability to show genuine care for your team members. Check up on them or send birthday messages. Surely, these acts of kindness will enhance their performance and productivity.

    Persuasion and Influencing Skills

    Being able to persuade your team members effectively is one skill that will help you. You will also need it to seal deals and broker partnership with other partners. Persuading people to follow your lead, will help keep your team together and focused on a common goal.

    Final Words

    With all these skills, you can build a very tight-knit team that can overcome and weather any storm together. One last thing you should remember is that there is no ‘I’ in team. A team is only as strong as the leader that leads them.

    How to Manage Remote Teams?
    Virtual teams [https://startuptalky.com/tag/virtual-teams/]are becoming more andmore common across the globe — from virtual assistants at small businesses toteams within big companies such as IBM to digital start-ups with fully remoteteams. The benefits are clear. According to Global Workplace An…
    StartupTalkyRishabh Rathi

    FAQs

    What is an effective team?

    Effective teams are the foundation of every successful organization. Companies without teams that work well together often struggle, while effective teams help to improve quality, facilitate the completion of projects and increase productivity and efficiency.

    How to build an effective team?

    Tips to build an effective team:-

    • Define the purpose
    • Assemble the team
    • Determine the goals
    • Set expectations
    • Monitor and review

    What makes an effective team?

    A thriving team has open and honest discussions, sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions. They engender a meritocracy, ensuring no-one is above anyone else and allowing everyone to feel as though they can contribute freely. Creating this sort of culture is one of the fundamental foundations of a successful team.

    How to Keep Business and Personal Expenses Separate
    Financial record keeping is absolutely paramount irrespective of the size of thebusiness. Typically, most newer businesses will have trouble keeping andmaintaining accurate financial records. Self-employed and freelance work can beeven trickier. This can quickly become an issue when it comes time…
    StartupTalkyParnas Ghosh

  • Workiom: A Connected Workspace For Your Team

    We live in an era that is marked by rapid evolution in digital technology. This is brought by thorough changes in organizational and business processes as well as digital models to harness innumerable opportunities provided by these digital transformations.

    There isn’t a specific recipe for digital transformation, some may opt for automation while others may introduce new apps that would significantly change consumer behavior. Whatever the case may be, it is always centered around data.

    Data, that is, vital information regarding your customers and business, should be the priority in your business strategy.

    Introducing Workiom…

    What is Workiom?
    Workiom – Features
    Workiom – Pricing
    Workiom – FAQ’s

    Workiom can be used on all devices
    Workiom can be used on all devices

    What is Workiom?

    Workiom is a great cloud-based collaboration tool and an online database for everyone. With Workiom you can customize your working space within a few clicks as well as create and link your data sets to one another.

    This way you can easily assign and monitor tasks, search and sort records, publish the results to external websites, and much more. Organize the workflow for your team just the way you want it with Workiom.

    SaaS Business Intelligence Tools for Reports, Insights and Dashboards
    SaaS Business Intelligence is a cloud based application, with a subscriptionbased approach to sell business oriented tools to enterprises. SaaS is oftenpreferred over on-premise software owing to its lower cost and ease ofdeployment. Because of the cloud based approach, SaaS BI tools have an even…
    StartupTalkyAnsh Mehrey

    Workiom – Features

    Seamless collaboration

    You can share projects with your clients and teammates once you invite them to your workspace.

    Workiom Dashboard
    Workiom Dashboard

    Ready-to-use templates

    From customer relationship management, campaign tracking. Social media management to meeting agenda, get started with pre-built templates and customize your app on the go.

    Customizable workspace

    With Workiom, you can create and customize your workspace the way you want it. No more silos and isolated data to manage separately.

    Data organization

    Arrange your data the way you need with Workiom’s advanced views and filtering options. Create new structures and viewing options with Workiom’s part spreadsheet and part relational database.

    Project management

    Task and project management is an integral part of every workflow. Workiom allows you to manage all tasks connected to your projects, clients, orders, and products.

    Workiom - Roles and Permissions dashboard
    Workiom – Roles and Permissions dashboard

    Automation

    Save time and money by focusing on your business and delegating repetitive work to Workiom. You can effortlessly automate your workflow process with triggers, actions, and conditions.

    Tracking and reporting performance

    Create reports and dashboards based on your data. Always stay up-to-date with your business data and bring transparency to your workflow.

    Inter-workspace integration

    Workiom lets you link data within the same workspace, across multiple apps and platforms. This feature allows users to sync and share data with various departments a breeze.

    Zapier

    You can seamlessly share data with third-party integrations using Zapier and get the best out of Workiom.

    Custom fields

    Design lists by choosing from field types and other options. You can either add or edit new data fields as you go. This feature provides the user with extensive information on every record.

    Data linking and representation

    You can link your data with tasks to avoid duplication and you have the option to see your data in the form of advanced grids, Kanban boards, or calendars. Choose whatever view you are comfortable with.

    Two-factor authentication

    All the data you collect and store inside your apps are encrypted and secured with two-factor authentication so you can rest assured that your data is safe. You also have the option to limit access for your clients and team members so they only get to see what you want to share.

    The overview and importance of Big Data analytics in Marketing teams
    There are hundreds of areas in which big data analytics revolutionizes marketingand sales department in the businesses. The analytics shows how prices arepredicted, defined, and managed through selling networks and are optimized tosee rapid gains. Gaining more price optimization for a given produ…
    StartupTalkyVibhavari Madki

    Workiom – Pricing

    Features

    • Unlimited Apps
    • Unlimited Records
    • Unlimited Storage
    • 3 users per deal
    • API & Webhooks
    • Automation & Workflows
    • Stack up to 10 deals

    Single – $49

    • Unlimited Apps
    • Unlimited Records
    • Unlimited Storage
    • 3 Teammates
    • 15 Guest users

    Double – $98

    • Unlimited Apps
    • Unlimited Records
    • Unlimited Storage
    • 6 Teammates
    • 30 Guest users

    Multiple – $147

    • Unlimited Apps
    • Unlimited Records
    • Unlimited Storage
    • 9 Teammates
    • 45 Guest users

    8 Ways to Toggle SaaS Customer Retention
    The B2B SaaS companies are those who handle business to business operations.Like, they provide services to another businesses, they don’t directly deal withthe end consumer. If you are running or planning to start a B2B SaaS company,then you need to understand the churn out rate and importance of…
    StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

    Workiom – FAQ’s

    Are unlimited records mentioned on the deal page, are contacts in the CRM counted as records?

    Yes, CRM contacts are counted as records. There are no constraints or limits.

    Will setting a New Role will take out one seat from available teammates?

    It is up to the user to create as many roles required. Users have the option to assign multiple roles for a single user. The seats are, however, counted per user account. A single account can be used by multiple users or people.

    Can a deleted guest be replace by another guest? Can we make several projects?

    Yes, Workiom allows you to be able to delete and replace guest users. Yes, you can have several projects or apps.

    What is the difference between ‘Guest users’ and ‘Teammates’?

    The guest user will have only commenting and viewing access to the data, additional it can also submit private forms. As this feature is still in beta mode, it will be tested and rolled out soon.

    Workiom – Conclusion

    Workiom has become a staple of the industry as it can be used by multiple departments and professionals. For instance, Workiom helps marketing teams streamline the creative production process by automating tasks and assignments. It also organizes all marketing assets by category and links them to various posts and articles.

    Workiom can also be used by product managers, designers, testers, UX researchers who need an online workspace that can be flexible enough to let all members work together. It allows users to design their own workflow and manage their progress in a collaborative team effort.