I have used the following tools throughout my Team Lead and Product Manager at SKF.com, Polestar.com Volvocars.com

1. When I am new to a team and being onboarded, I always conduct deep interviews with all team members, key stakeholders, and management. Understanding the context, legacy, and driving forces is vital. It always results in the roadmap of future improvements.
2. The roadmap (my roadmaps tend to be a mix of strategy, vision, operation, and tactical items) addresses problems or catches low-hanging fruit for the entire team.
3. The roadmap also includes changes in how we operate and use digital tools to remove overhead, e.g., SCRUM tool not optimized, build tool, not 100%, Slack integrations, and team communications expectations.
4. Make the roadmap visual, easier to understand, and relate to; hence, people tend to ask more questions, spot flaws, and commit to it. The roadmap is one of the super(the opposite is to create the roadmap in a spreadsheet, which I never do).
5. The roadmap aligns management and developers in one standard view of what lies ahead and when to archive releases and features. This gives me as Team Lead/Product Owner more mandate and buy-in, which means I can spend more time on whatever the product or team needs.
6. Take the time to have one-on-ones with each one; frequency depends on the team. 30 minutes per month works for me most of the time.
7. When in the one-on-ones, I always ask for feedback on how I am doing; I give feedback improvements, but among all, appreciative feedback. A key component in creating a compounding effect is asking for 1-2 things from each team member in every one-on-one; we are accountable for items we take on. Establishing a culture of accountability is very important; if one says something, we listen and act.
8. Take the role of mentor and coach with your team; being sympathetic, understanding, and supportive makes you gain loyalty and trust, needed to dig deeper if there are issues with the team or product. It is a superpower! 💪🏼
9. All-in-all, acting on the roadmap and continuous one-on-one are two super tools to achieve a fantastic result with the product, where most team members thrive and contribute (improve, innovate) out of pure curiosity and creativity.
10. If there is an issue with the product or team, the team knows what is wrong and what should be done to improve, but those things still need to surface for various reasons. Ask everyone on the team about the problem and how she/he would solve it.

Summary: The compounding effect of moving the team and product day-by-day, week-by-week, can be enormous. The tools I use:

• In-depth interview
• Continuous one-on-ones
• The 5-1 rule (5 positive feedback and one improvement)
• Roadmap for visual communication, progress, commitment

A quote I love: Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. - Charles Mingus

Until next time,

I highly recommend James Clear’s newsletter; it is very inspiring for those who have a nagging idea, but “things” tend to come in the way of getting started…

‍

Chris ⚡️

Intra-entrepreneur with a just-do-it-innovatively mentality. I make teams & products excel by taking action.

Unleash Digital Team Excellence for Volvo Cars, Polestar, Molnlycke, SAP, together with Apple