Culture With Technology

Rules to Organise a Dynamic and Productive Culture with Technology

As we are fast approaching the end of this decade, it’s important to focus on a 2020 vision (excuse the pun). We all know the goal of any product or service is to create memorable experiences for customers but what about the great people you work with?

You must enrich their lives in tangible and real ways they value. I try to live life to the fullest by achieving the most out of my days to help others, it’s vital to spotlight the opportunities and learn to siphon distractions.

I’ve spent much of my life constantly learning, reading and mastering effectiveness. One of the simplest, yet efficient is perfecting the Pomodoro Technique which utilizes the day into 25-minute chunks separated by 5-minute breaks. Simple as it may seem, it can offer clear, consistent processes and systems to time manage. However, with technology readily available, there’s no excuse to collaborate better as a team and GSD (Get Stuff Done).

Setup Group Chats

Small companies with 100 employees lose about $420,000 per year due to inefficient favouritism amongst veteran team members. Favouritism and office politics don’t get the best out of people. My philosophy is always “The best idea wins” communication among employees. Simple chat apps such as Slack, WhatsApp, Troop Messenger, HipChat, Campfire, Google Hangouts, Grove, Podio, Hall, Flowdock and WeChat can be easily setup and usually have a premium version available. A Scrum Team is no less than five people and no more than eleven people, try to keep the chat numbers based on Scrum or Agile team sizes.

Create the environment to collaborate Brainstorming sessions can allow everyone to contribute to the project and feel valued. I’ve worked at both companies where they value everyone's ideas also worked at companies where there’s obvious

Offering incentives for efficient staff is vital to creating a productive workplace. Too many workplaces would rather see staff working late as a sign of sacrifice and dedication to their job.

Make Project Management fun I always hated filling in my timesheet, partly due to remembering late afternoon on that Friday. This is easily avoidable with the use of project management apps. Team members will know who is working on what. It also clearly outlines deadlines, task dependencies and bottlenecks in the project, allowing project managers to take certain steps to maintain a high level of productivity.

Basecamp is probably the most wellknown project management app and the one I personally use the most.

Others include Evernote, Asana, Microsoft Project and Casual. Jira and other Atlasssian software such as Trello aren’t personally my first choice as they have their flaws.

My rules to organise a dynamic and productive culture are:

Have empathy with all your team members and build emotional connections. (Empathy is the ability to understand and share the thoughts or feelings of others. It can be categorised into three main areas: Cognitive empathy, Emotional empathy (also known as affective empathy) and Compassionate empathy (also known as empathic concern)

Stop Multitasking It slows you down, increases stress levels, and causes mistakes. Master unitasking instead.

Offer incentives If your team achieves their goal...reward/celebrate. A recent survey said that Flexible working arrangements was the most appealing perks & benefits companies can offer employees (Days-in-Lieu, Work-fromhome, Go-Karting, Inhouse Cooking Classes, Spa Treatments, AppStore/iTunes gift cards etc)

Never create the fear of losing a job. Saying things like “we value you at the company” goes a very long way.

Value feedback, suggestions, input and ideas.

Praise productivity rather than simply time spent at the office.

There are only opportunities in business, not problems

Family first, Work second. (If family emergencies arise, leave)

Appoint a 'Chief Culture Officer' The most dynamic person should be your Chief Culture Officer.

Be open-minded to using technology and apps to collaborate.

Stephen Molloy

He also works on many large global projects and keeps himself very busy as a Senior Product Designer, Speaker, Author and Consultant. He was a Candidate in this year’s State Election, then Candidate for the Federal Election and is now nominated for Australian of the Year 2020.

Stephen Molloy is busy Judging this year’s ADMA Creativity & Effectiveness Awards (AC&Es), Judging B&T Awards 2019, Judging the 7 News Young Achiever Award and Judging the App Growth Awards in Berlin.

In his spare time he studies at Cambridge University and fits in time to spend valuable with his wife and daughter.