In the previous article, we discussed the qualities that create strong team synergies and the attributes to look for when recruiting talent for a founding team.
Now, let’s explore how a Winning Tribe can operate effectively and be led to success.
A Story About Procrastination
When I first became a team leader, I learned some valuable lessons the hard way. I was leading a group of ten students commissioned to develop a sector diversification strategy for a multi-million pound SME cluster in Cumbria.
As we began drafting the final report, it was my responsibility to ensure that each student’s section fit together cohesively. One team member, who held a PhD in Business Operations, was responsible for the core section on sector diversification, an essential contribution to the report.
Despite repeated attempts to get an update or even a draft, their section remained empty day after day, week after week.
As the deadline approached, I began to panic. But a mentor reassured me, explaining that some people work in different rhythms and simply have a procrastinator mentality.
Procrastinators are often perfectionists. They can spend weeks ruminating over ideas and mentally iterating until they “hit the spot”. Applying pressure to such individuals can disrupt their creative process and simultaneously drain your own energy and patience.
I realised that I had wasted a lot of time and energy chasing updates. Instead, I should have trusted their expertise and allowed them the space to follow their own process.
Finding Your Team’s Natural Frequency
Project managers are focused on one thing above all else: deadlines. Our role is to ensure the team functions like a well-oiled machine and delivers high quality results on time.
However, this obsession with speed and efficiency can blind us to the human side of work. Every team member has their own productivity rhythm. Forcing them to adopt your pace risks burnout for both manager and workers alike.
After this experience, I learned the importance of understanding what drives each person on the team:
- What do they enjoy doing?
- What new skills do they want to learn?
- What tasks do they find boring?
- How do they approach their work?
I use this information to assign tasks that align with individual preferences and tailor my communciation style. Some people find meetings inefficient, so I send them Slack messages. Others prefer daily check-ins to stay on track and be clear about expectations.
Good management means tailoring your approach to each individual while still ensuring the team delivers quality work on time.
How to Concentrate Productivity Through Sprint Sessions
After securing funding for student workers, Andrew Wilson and I faced a dilemma: how could we engage the new team effectively in the garden project?
One condition of the funding was a cap on the number of hours each student could spend working on the project: four hours per week. Yet the garden required significant effort to deliver our roadmap, and we also wanted to foster a strong sense of belonging among the students.
We decided to run weekly sprint sessions – three hour blocks on a set day each week when everyone worked together in the garden.
This approach solved multiple problems at once.
First, it increased the proportion of productive hours. Setting up and tidying after garden work takes about 20 minutes. If students came at different times throughout the week, we would collectively spend a third of our productive hours just on preparation and clean-up. With a single sprint block, we reduce this to just 20 minutes.
Second, having a predictable, recurring time slot made scheduling easier for everyone, instead of trying to coordinate with several conflicting timetables.
Finally, working together in the same place fostered camaraderie. We completed tasks faster, connected socially, and held each other accountable. Communication was easier, and we avoided duplicating efforts.
From Sprints to Action Days
We started with a single three hour sprint every Wednesday afternoon. However, it soon became clear that a rigid time block didn’t suit everyone, as other commitments like lectures, family, and social activities arose.
To address this, I created a poll asking, “Which day, apart from Wednesday, are you most likely to be free?” This allowed us to add an alternative sprint slot on Fridays. Each week, I simply posted a poll to our group chat asking who could attend each session.
This solution brought several unexpected benefits:
- It ensured students could attend at least one session each week, even if they split their hours across both sprint sessions.
- It doubled productivity, as we always had at least two people in the garden at a time.
- If someone missed both sessions one week, they could usually catch up the following week by attending both sprints.
I started referring to this approach as Action Days, as it framed the work as a fixed part of the weekly schedule rather than just a time slot.
Action Days are particularly effective in early stage startups, especially when budget constraints require making the most of every paid hour and when team members are supporting the project alongside other jobs. They build consistency, predictability, and routine.
In my other venture, NEA Studio, we all have additional jobs that help fund the main project. I apply the same system there: two three hour blocks per week that people select in advance.
Since we are currently a fully remote company, I like to end our Action Day sprints with relaxed gaming sessions. We often share drinks over video calls and play Minecraft together on a company server. It reminds us that, ultimately, we are friends as well as colleagues.
Takeaways
Action Days are a powerful way to structure your team’s time together. They increase weekly productivity hours and help maintain steady progress. By offering two weekly sessions, you increase attendance and create flexibility for people to make up missed time.
With just three or four hours of contact time each week, the project manager’s role becomes even more critical. Knowing how each person works best and understanding their natural productivity rhythms ensures the team performs at 120% during sprint sessions.
Combining thoughtful, adaptive management with concentrated bursts of productivity provides the foundation for a Winning Tribe to achieve extraordinary results in record time.
Do you think your team’s productivity could improve with a different scheduling approach? Are there team members whose working style you could better accomodate?
In the next article, we’ll return to the topic of fundraising and explore how to leverage a small seed fund effectively while attracting new partners through visual story telling.
Emilio Garcia Padron is an MSc Applied Mathematics student at Imperial College London, specializing in Computational Dynamical Systems. He is a full-stack software developer and founder of NEA Studios. He is also a founder of RE:GEN @ Imperial, a project aiming to protect and expand Green Spaces on Imperial grounds that raised over £39,000 in funding.
Image: DALL-E
🔴 Found these ideas useful?
Sharpen your edge