Is it better to stay in the background at times?
|
As I was trying to come up with a topic for this weeks blog post I was thinking of situations in which the team would meet up to work. I try to make this a common practice within our team. For the most part I am always the one who schedules the work times and I also make sure that we have someplace to work, yet once we are there, I don’t really do anything special. We usually host the daily stand-up-meeting at the beginning of these work days, so that is obviously something I’m in charge of. However once the meeting is done, I’m mainly taking notes and making preliminary plans for upcoming sprints. Since my role within the team isn’t as labor-intensive as that of an artist or a programmer, these work days are not exactly made for me. (Though perhaps this is less accurate of a statement for the last couple of weeks since I’ve been working on the Alpha and Beta presentations). I’ve figured that by showing up and staying with the group, I am showing that I am commited to the project, despite not having anything meaningful to do at that time. Generally, it serves as a way for me to keep the team morale high. What I have been wondering more recently however, is if it is possible that this is actually the wrong approach to take? Is it possible that by showing up to work with the group and seemingly not doing anything in particular, I am actually lowering the team morale? I don’t know really, perhaps I’m just imagining it all. Basically I’m wondering if it is best for the Project Manager to stay more in the background when there isn’t much going on, for the sake of keeping the team engaged. Could it be that not working with the team is more so beneficial to morale than it would be to stay with the team yet not contributing? I’ll make it a personal goal to determine what is the best approach to this before the next blog post. I’ll most likely bring it up during the next meetup with the group. And perhaps I should ask other Project Managers about their experiences on the topic? Apologies for not really drawing any conclusions of my own in this post, since I myself don’t really know what is the right approach. But hopefully I have brought up something which will useful for any of you to consider in the future.  |