Team Building Events: Some Assembly Required

We here at the Nigro Firm are do-it-yourselfers, team players and like to save a few bucks here and there. So, we recently combined a complicated assembly project into a team building experience , why not?

Our project was to put a desk together. Sound easy? Maybe, if you have good instructions and few parts....building a simple elementary school extension is easy too, when you have good build instructions.....but we all know the reality of that situation.

The Instructions
Like most "some assembly required" projects this one was actually "tons of assembly required." According to the 37 pages of instructions the project should take one person about an hour and 20 minutes.

However, here are the real stats:
Build Time: 3.5 hours
# of People: 3

Other Highlights and statistics:
# of times someone said "This is stupid": 48
# of times someone said "What the ____?": 23
Tools and screws not included: 5
Beers and Iced Teas Required: 6
Total Swear Words Uttered: 297
Total Number of Full On Belly Laughs: 12

Favorite Saying Developed During the Process
"If all else fails, smack it."

Least Helpful Team Member: Izzy
Though we assigned this beagle the task of translating the instructions from Spanish to English, he failed miserably due to his constant napping.










Finished Product:
After three and half hours of assembly, we decided we liked it better before we took it out of the box, lol.













What we learned during this team event:

• That complex and confusing tasks are easier and more amusing when not completed alone.
• We learned compromise and that sometimes parts can be put on upside down and still work.
• Good communication is paramount to success, especially when your content writer refers to the brackets as the "L" things.
• That building from bad instructions is stressful. And that building from bad construction drawings must be exponentially stressful. That is what makes our work so rewarding, the assistance we can offer to help people obtain the most accurate construction drawings possible is an amazing reward to our hard work.
• That we are perfectionists. Despite confusing instructions, bad drawings, and general frustration, we refused short cuts, never skipped a step and kept the final product in our mind at all times. That is just how we operate.
  

Team Development: Finding Great Reviewers

Many people have asked me how I find my great construction document coordination reviewers. Some have tried and found out that this is an extremely difficult process.

The answer, though, is incredibly simple… find people who can think, people who are inquisitive and willing to spend the time to track down something that is puzzling them.

Well… I guess it really isn’t quite as simple as that. There are people who can think that still won’t make good reviewers.

Sometimes ambitious, intelligent people do not work out for a variety of reasons. In some cases, they can’t help but try to fix the discrepancy they’ve found. And this is not what we do… we are not on the design team and do not have access to all of the information needed to make those kind of decisions, we only have the drawings and the specs to work with. Suggesting fixes also may expose us to needless liability while not really helping the client.

Other folks are just inherently too forgiving… they really don’t want to find errors in the construction documents. So they have a tendency to either not see the errors or to see them and think “Oh… I can guess what the designer meant… so I won’t red-mark this issue.”

It’s quite a challenge to find people who can pay attention to detail, but not get so bogged down in the details and errors that they take too long to perform a review… or perhaps even worse, they can’t see big picture patterns or issues.

Not only that, reviewers must be aware of their work habits/patterns and plan their time accordingly to meet deadlines… and know themselves well enough to know when they have worked enough. Since we are in the quality assurance business, it’s embarrassing when we make silly mistakes… which happens much more frequently if we are pushed, stressed, or tired.

And then to top it all off, all our reviewers have to be team players and get along (trust, respect, etc.) with each other. Since one person doesn’t review an entire project, the people involved must work closely together.

Author: Natalie Nigro

Team Development: Creating a healthy, trusting and productive team

Who do you want to spend 8-12 hours a day with?

You cannot always pick who you work with, but what if you could? Who would you want to work with?

A healthy team requires many of the same attributes as a healthy friendship. Good friends care about each other's well being, enjoy each other's success, are helpful and supportive, they are honest and desire to work through things patiently to help the relationship last through many challenges. Don't those qualities sound like they can also facilitate productive teamwork, cooperation, creative problem solving and personal accountability?

In reality, we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our family, partner or friends, so wouldn't you want to spend your waking hours with people that you actually get along with? That is what team building is all about, either you create a team of people that are cooperative and supportive of each other or you work with an existing team and try to help them learn to be cooperative and supportive.

Believe it or not, a good team has lots to do with trust, for example, in terms of my team I trust that they:

• will complete their assignments
• will get their work done on time
• will ask me for help or clarification if they need it
• are supportive of me reaching my or the companies' goals
• will try to do the best job they are capable of
  
• will not take on more work than they can complete
• will provide me with a consistent product or service
• will act in the best interest of the company
• desire to produce quality/ accurate work

Think about it, if you can really believe the above about your team, your stress level will likely drop in half. How much time do you spend worrying about what someone else is doing or if they are going to make you or your company look bad?

If you can create a solid team that treats each other with respect like best friends would, you can enjoy a powerful, formidable team that knows how to utilize the talents and trust of the group to move proverbial mountains.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens