Respond to the posts on Topic: NETWORKING - A KEY TO SUCCESSFUL TEAMWORK

by Rajashekar Daggula

Team boundaries are necessary to focus on the project and prioritize tasks as per requirement. Without these boundaries, teams face various issues in day-to-day roles and responsibilities. These boundary issues vary from small organizations to big organizations. Boundaries need to be identified before asserting them between the teams. Once boundaries are identified, individuals in the group should agree to the borders. Implementing the limits or boundaries shouldn't be harsh on the other teams. Saying 'no' to dependent work will negatively impact the team's reputation. Instead, the team's bandwidth to be considered while considering external work (Yan, Hun, Liu, Ru, & Wu, 2020). Individuals in the team should encourage schedules to keep the extensive focus on project deadlines, important stakeholder meetings, etc. Sometimes boundaries have to be breached due to escalations from upper management. Boundaries impact internal cohesion and external ties depending on team size, organization, and dependent work (Cruz & Pinto, 2019). In a small team, internal cohesion has a noticeable impact when boundaries are implemented. As minimal external factors influence the project. External ties are as important as internal cohesion. For a developer, internal cohesion is more important than external ties when project requirements are given. In the case of sales teams, external ties play a crucial role than the internal cohesion among the individuals in a team. The right balance of boundaries in a team will ensure that internal cohesion and external ties are well balanced with effective communication.

Common roles in an organization would be implementer, shaper, finisher, investigator, and team worker.  I would consider myself an investigator and team worker. My work is centralized on automating the manual pieces of infrastructure that are essential for the application teams. To come up with different implementations of automation and toolset, I have to explore and try out various tools that fit into the organizational automation pipelines. We have lunch bag sessions to go over the findings to learn as a team and gain knowledge collectively in the team.

References

Cruz, K. S., & Pinto, J. (2019). Team Focus in Focus: Its Implications for Real Teams and Their Members. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 123-133.

Yan, S., Hun, B., Liu, G., Ru, X., & Wu, Q. (2020). Top management team boundary-spanning behaviour, bricolage, and business model innovation. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 32.