Discover the main tasks, all you need to be able to do and understand to excel at team working.
Build relationships with your team and other teams
- Build relationships and maintain regular communication with the people in your own team, your department, and other departments
- Build relationships and communicate regularly with external teams and organisations who will be affected by decisions and activities in your work
- Use appropriate approaches to help you work effectively with people you find it difficult to agree with
- Show sensitivity to internal and external politics and recognise and respect the roles, responsibilities and priorities of others
- The hierarchies and dynamics of any teams that you are part of
- Relevant people in your own department, other departments, suppliers or partners and their work roles and responsibilities
- The importance of your role in the overall process and the effect that your own attitude, time management, deadlines and quality of work can have on others
- How to work as part of a team to collaborate effectively on a production or project together
- The planning and decision-making processes where you work
- The importance of recognising and respecting the roles, responsibilities, needs, motivations, interests and concerns of colleagues, partners, clients and suppliers
Work effectively with colleagues, partners and suppliers in your team and other teams
- Manage your own time and contribution making sure your work has a positive effect on others involved
- Deal with others in a way that encourages mutual support and trust
- Share your work with people in your team/other teams when appropriate and constructively use their feedback to revise work when required
- Share constructive ideas and suggestions with others when appropriate
- Identify when changes requested by others will have an impact on budget, timescales or other parts of the work and communicate this appropriately
- Inform others promptly of any difficulties with carrying out agreed actions or meeting commitments and negotiate and agree alternative actions
- Communicate any information, your requirements and your concerns to other teams at the appropriate time and as clearly as possible
- Take account of others’ views and concerns, including their priorities, expectations and attitudes, and share your expectations with them
- Identify potential conflicts of interest and disagreements and take action to avoid or resolve them in ways that minimise impact
- Identify ways to improve working relationships with colleagues and other teams, seeking and providing feedback
- The pipeline or workflow and how your role and the roles of other colleagues and teams fit into it
- How your role and responsibilities may need to change to handle the different requirements of different pieces of work
- The implications of your decisions on the budgets and resources with which you are involved
- The importance of managing others’ expectations of what can be delivered and when
- Effective ways to consult with colleagues, partner organisations and suppliers on key decisions and activities
- How to communicate effectively with colleagues and suppliers in different situations, different locations and countries including differences between face-to-face, Zoom and e-mail
Use team working as a way to increase your skills and gain experience
- Show others that you have a positive attitude to work, are pleasant to work with and have a long-term interest in the area where they work
- Develop relationships with experienced colleagues that allow you to learn from them
- Ask for help whenever you are uncertain about how to carry out a task or what is required
- Find out who can provide reliable support and advice so that you can develop understanding quickly and thoroughly
- How to show others that you understand the pressures and responsibilities of work and are capable of learning
- The layout of the workplace and how different locations and facilities are referred to
- The roles and skills of people in your team and other teams and what you can learn from them
- How to identify people who are reliable and open sources of information
To know more about team working competencies, also see: communication; negotiating; networking.
Explore more team working competencies with non-entry level tasks:
Work effectively
- Manage your own time and contribution making sure your work has a positive effect on others involved
- Exchange knowledge and skills with others you work with and ask for help when you need it
- Share work with others when appropriate and constructively use feedback to revise work when required
- Identify when changes requested by others will have an adverse effect on budget, timescales, end result or other parts of the work and communicate this in an appropriate manner
- Maintain confidentiality of sensitive information in line with organisational procedures and data protection requirements
- The pipeline or workflow and how your role and the roles of others fit into it
- How your role and responsibilities may need to change to handle the different requirements of different pieces of work
- The implications of your decisions on the budgets and resources with which you are involved
- How to work as part of a team
- The implications of current legislation and regulations covering Data Protection
- How to use online resources to learn tips and find out what others are doing
Provide creative and strategic direction for projects
- Liaise with strategic, creative, technical, project management and management staff to ensure the requirements are understood and can be effectively implemented
- Liaise with external and/or internal project sponsors to clarify their requirements and expectations
- Liaise with the client to obtain approval for the work
- Evaluate and give constructive feedback about creative and technical work produced by others
- The different specialist skills that may be required for a given project
- The needs and expectations of your organisation’s design and production staff
- How to communicate effectively with the different people involved in development
- How to reconcile client, user and commercial requirements
- How to submit work for approval, manage change requests, and obtain sign-off
- The importance of strong creative direction and clear lines of accountability in the team
Manage projects
- Identify available budgets, timescales and resource constraints
- Resolve any points for clarification and ambiguities arising from information and its interpretation
- Make realistic estimates of equipment, materials and people required to meet the creative and technical demands of the project
- Identify key milestones and plan how they will be achieved
- Secure people with the appropriate skills to carry out the work
- Give accurate and concise information about plans to the people involved in time for them to influence plans, where appropriate, and take appropriate action
- Establish arrangements for effective communications between everyone involved
- Agree arrangements for dealing with contingencies with those involved
- Monitor activities and progress sufficiently to enable you to identify deviations
- Use appropriate methods to communicate changes to previously agreed plans to all relevant people
- Suggest and agree workable solutions when there are significant deviations from schedule and plans
- The roles and responsibilities of the people involved and who the decision makers are
- How a workflow can help people understand interdependencies between different activities and improve the quality of early dialogue
- The information required by different people at each stage
- Criteria and methods for accurately and comprehensively assessing quantity and specification of materials
- Ways to evaluate the performance of materials
- How and when to identify specialist skills, equipment or materials and where to source them
- Ways of reaching agreement on roles and responsibilities
- How to identify actual and potential deviations from schedules and plans
- When to take control from others
- How to select the best way to communicate with the people involved
- What information is needed by whom and when they need it
- The kinds of contingencies which may arise and ways of dealing with them
Develop and use professional networks
- Tell people clearly what you have to offer and how it is complimentary to their way of working
- Make sure that you make contact effectively with as many people as possible in any networking situation
- Recommend other people in your contact network when you are unable to provide a service or product
- Find ways to keep in regular contact with new and existing contacts
- How to promote what you do in a way that will encourage other people to find out more
- How you benefit by introducing and referring your business contacts to others when the opportunity arise
Work effectively with colleagues, partners and suppliers
- Build relationships and maintain regular dialogue with external organisations who will be affected by decisions and activities in your work
- Deal with others in a way that encourages mutual support and trust
- Manage other people’s expectations about what you can and can’t do
- Inform others promptly of any difficulties with carrying out agreed actions or meeting commitments and negotiate and agree alternative action with them
- Make informed decisions and consider how your decisions will impact on others inside and outside the organization
- Communicate effectively and present information, your requirements and your concerns at the appropriate time and in ways that promote understanding
- Take account of others’ views and concerns, including their priorities, expectations and attitudes and share your expectations with them
- Identify potential conflicts of interest and disagreements and take action to avoid them, resolving any that are unavoidable in ways that minimise damage to work activities, the people involved and the organization
- Monitor and review the effectiveness of working relationships with others, seeking and providing feedback, in order to identify areas for improvement
- How to develop confidence to make decisions even when very little information is available
- The importance of managing others’ expectations of what can be delivered and when
- How to identify when and how to communicate with others
- Ways to consult with colleagues, partner organisations and suppliers on key decisions and activities
- How to communicate effectively with colleagues and suppliers in different situations, different locations and countries and what information they need to know
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