After disconnecting, relaxing, and enjoying holidays with your beloved ones, it’s time to get back to work!

As expected, many of your team members may find it “difficult” to get the rhythm of work back. So, how do you help your team get back on track and make sure everyone is on the same page?

Here you are 3 actionable tips that my team and I have put into practice to start 2022 off right.

👀 Start from looking back

Evaluate with your team everything they achieved and where they ended up in 2021, discuss what went well and where there is room for improvement.

At Lidr.co, we run a 4Ls retrospective exercise. It is a team activity upon completion of a sprint designed to understand what worked, what didn’t, and what can be improved.

The 4Ls stand for liked, learned, lacked, and longed for. It empowers the team to highlight the positive elements of a sprint and understand the negative, allowing them to think from a factual rather than emotional perspective.

It also helps open up the team to share their thoughts, bring out new ideas, and foster a sense of being heard as well as a sense of great accomplishment and motivation to do a great job again, which helps you bring your team to be on the same page again! 🙌

🚩 Align your team and set expectations.

An aligned team aspires to achieve the same vision, understands the goals, and is made up of people who understand how to contribute their strengths. — Verne Harnish

When people are aligned to do what needs to be done, things can get done faster and easier.

Present a roadmap with the goals you want to achieve with your team, and set expectations at the individual level, starting by letting them know the why. It will provide them with clarity and direction.

👥 Run a Town Hall meeting

This is an all-hands session! We at Lidr ran it to introduce the new year’s goals, big-picture updates, and strengthen our company culture.

It is the ideal time to present the roadmap that I talked about in the previous point, and discuss what your team members can do to help the company succeed.

These are all things that you should be doing regularly to keep your team engaged and aligned, but as we move into a new year, it’s always a great idea to look at these actionable tips with a fresh approach and renewed commitment.

Have a great new working year!

Leave a comment

⚒️ Template & Guide to 4L's Retrospectives

Get a free 4Ls Retrospective template to share the positives and negatives about your most recent sprint.

🔗 Get the template here • 3 min.

📄 Virtual Town Hall Meetings: 10 Tips to Run a Better Meeting

Interested in diving deep into Town hall meetings? This 7 min read, will give you clarity and a deep explanation about how to run these meetings and some tools to give you a boost!

🔗 Read the article here • 10 min.

📔 Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

This is a book I highly recommend because of its real-life examples and practical approach to Engineering Management. Read hilarious stories with serious lessons that Michael Lopp extracts from his varied and sometimes bizarre experiences as a manager at Apple, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, Syma…

🔗 Get the book here

LIDR Pills for Engineering Leaders 💊

3 tips to start 2022 off right with your…