Multiteaming is all the rage at the moment – but what exactly is multiteaming? It involves deploying qualified staff across different projects simultaneously. It is currently the most common way of working in young start-ups, medium-sized companies and even large corporations. According to various studies, multiteaming is already part of everyday life for over half of knowledge workers in Europe and the US.
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Advantages of multiteaming
The flexible, cross-project deployment of staff makes work more efficient and enables significant cost savings to be achieved. This stems, amongst other things, from the fact that you need to recruit fewer new staff or provide less training for your existing employees, thereby ensuring optimal utilisation of your expensive specialists.
The simultaneous deployment of your qualified staff facilitates a constant transfer of knowledge across different projects. This not only enables the exchange of information but also allows for discussions regarding the workload and priorities of individual colleagues and projects. Ultimately, this leads to a deeper understanding amongst staff, which in turn results in better collaboration within the team.
Driving innovation through multiteaming is another positive aspect. The agile rotation within the teams brings a breath of fresh air, which not only presents exciting and interesting challenges for your staff but can also stimulate creativity. This is achieved through the convergence of a wealth of information and diverse perspectives.
Potential risks
As appealing as the benefits may sound, there are also a number of risks that can arise if the approach is applied incorrectly. The high workload placed on your staff may lead to an increased risk of burnout. Furthermore, your teams’ productivity may drop significantly due to the variety of tasks that need to be carried out simultaneously. As a result, your colleagues may become highly stressed or demotivated, which further reduces work performance and cuts into your profits. In short: the incorrect use of multiteaming can lead to a vicious circle from which it is difficult to escape.
Another factor that can lead to financial loss is potential managerial chaos caused by close interdependencies within the teams. If an employee is absent, this causes difficulties and problems for various departments. This can lead to a project disaster.
Solutions for preventing these risks
To ensure that your use of multiteaming does not turn into a disaster, but instead allows you to reap the benefits, here are some tips for you and your company:
Tip 1 – Make efficient use of links between departments
You need to be aware of the links between different teams and utilise them efficiently so that you can create structures that benefit collaboration and the efficiency of your staff. However, to ensure these links do not have a negative impact, you must try to avoid the risk of interdependencies between individual departments. You must also reconcile the different priorities of the groups and thereby remove obstacles so that you can further increase work efficiency.
Tip 2 – Know your staff’s skills
To deploy your staff efficiently, you need to have a clear understanding of each employee’s skills and take both their strengths and weaknesses into account when planning. It is important to be aware not only of your staff’s hard skills, but also their soft skills. This will enable you to find the best mix for your departments – both in terms of behaviour and work performance.
Tip 3 – Foster team spirit
It is important that you strengthen the cohesion, trust and unity among your team members – even when working together on a short-term basis. A team means that several people are working on a task – together. For you, this means that your staff must pull in the same direction so that nothing stands in the way of the successful implementation of projects. You do not need outstanding individuals, but rather staff who can demonstrate the ability to work as part of a team, even when collaborating across several departments for a short period.
Jealousy, mistrust or anxiety can arise when different personalities come into contact. There are numerous triggers for this, such as the fear that another colleague might perform better or receive more recognition. This can have a very negative impact on group dynamics and departmental motivation, which in turn leads to a drop in productivity. To prevent this, you should plan specific measures to build trust and boost motivation.
Tip 4 – Training and development
To ensure that project planning and progress run as smoothly as possible, you should train, support and develop your staff accordingly. Do not skimp on recruiting capable staff. It is particularly advisable to schedule appropriate training for project managers. Here are a few examples of training courses that benefit multi-team work:
- overarching management/coordination of multiple projects
- Supporting and developing informal forms of learning
- Ensuring cross-project knowledge transfer
- Strengthening team cohesion on an emotional level
- Motivating team members
Tip 5 – Adopt a strategic and proactive approach to multiteaming
For multiteaming to work, your project leaders and managers must approach team planning strategically and proactively. Particularly with such an intertwined way of working, it is important that everything is planned as precisely as possible. This is the only way to maintain an overview; otherwise, multiteaming can very quickly descend into chaos.
Prevent your skilled staff from becoming overburdened by so-called ‘body leasing’. If, for example, you schedule them for 100 per cent of their time, this usually results in an actual workload of 130 per cent. This can lead to demotivation and exhaustion. Furthermore, this increases the likelihood of your staff falling ill, which usually results in absences that have a negative impact on several projects at once. It is therefore important that you allow for a buffer in case a project requires more resources than planned.
Tip 6 – Rewards and benefits
There is a risk that your multi-teamers will feel exploited and unappreciated. Your staff have to quickly familiarise themselves with different teams and constantly adapt to new circumstances and working environments. To ensure this is seen not as a penalty but as an opportunity, you should make it clear to your staff right from the start what benefits multiteaming brings. These can include, on the one hand, a broader range of skills and, on the other, the chance for staff to demonstrate their abilities.
Reward the commitment and adaptability of your multiteamers financially when they perform well, as this motivates your staff to continue giving their best and can have a positive impact on your company’s productivity.
Tip 7 – Encourage knowledge sharing
The greatest advantage of multiteaming is the enormous exchange of knowledge that takes place across projects. Encourage this so that all your employees can benefit from it. Have difficulties arisen in one team? If so, you can take precautions for the other projects to ensure they do not encounter the same problem. Always ensure that individual team members are included in the communication process.
To encourage the exchange of information, there is no need for extensive reports from all teams; this can also take place, for example, through the ‘Working Out Loud’ method. Alternatively, team events can be organised to further facilitate this exchange.
Multiteaming as a Success Factor
If you take the above factors and tips into account, nothing will stand in the way of successful multiteaming. This will allow you to harness the resulting benefits to boost your company’s productivity. Try to engage with your staff and resolve conflicts quickly to maintain positive group dynamics. Also, ensure that you do not impose this way of working on any employee who is not suited to it.
Cover image: © Shutterstock/g-stockstudio
Image 1: © Shutterstock/SFIO CRACHO
Image 2: © Shutterstock/Syda Productions
