Contracting, outsourcing and trust

The success of any project can be attributed to its team, its cohesion and synergy. But has the concept of team cohesion been declining, at least in the IT sector where the concept of contracting and outsourcing have gained prominence in recent years?

Various methodologies have been tried and tested, recent one being Agile, which vehemently preaches the concept of ever more team interaction. The core philosophy behind all modern methodologies have been to enable teams find a better and decisive way to work together, address concerns, pacify sponsors by ensuring transparency and deliver on commitments exceeding expectations. Further analysis reveals that trust is one single attribute which binds a team together, helps achieve this amount of success – the trust between team members and trust between management and the team.

As mentioned earlier, contracting and outsourcing are big in the IT industry and the issue of trust has become a point of contention. Contractors would want to protect their jobs by becoming more valuable, and at times valuable could translate into fewer knowledge sharing sessions and less documentation affecting mutual trust and team cohesion. Working with outsourced vendors is another big issue, with each vendor trying to guard their business interests and inadvertently becoming less engaged with competitor team member(s).

The biggest challenge faced by managements in IT companies is in ensuring that trust prevails among team members and they work together as one big team. A longer-term project plan with consistent contracting and delegation schedule would certainly help in allaying the fears of contractors and vendors.

Setting out expectations and standards earlier on in relation to documentation and knowledge sharing could go a long way in ensuring that knowledge is shared among team members and no one attains the status of “cannot be dispensed with” thereby building trust and dependency.

Collaboration days where team members could share their experience of previous projects and knowledge of industry relevant technologies would certainly help imbibe a culture of sharing information - the core idea being that you only share knowledge with people you trust, at least in the professional space. Team building exercises certainly help, but managers should be wary that silos are not created in the process.

Guaranteeing stability and growth, clear purpose and exhibiting road map of projects ahead certainly helps in allaying anxiety of employees. This would certainly prompt team members to trust each other and interact effectively achieving greater results.

- Vinod Geeachan

Image courtesy:
http://coachesnetwork.com/content/building-team-cohesion (accessed on 10/12/2019).