Team status & bonding meetings analytics

What is the meaning of team bonding? 
Team bonding is the term used to describe all activities that seek to build team motivation, trust, boost cross-team collaboration, and instill a common sense of purpose. It also seeks to promote knowledge sharing, agility, and grow resilience. 
Team bonding circles around regular synchronous communication routines, such as status meetings. They reduce the need for ongoing, ad hoc guidance from the team leader, as well as engaging in asynchronous communication among team members.

What are good team bonding activities? 
To check if you’re engaging in good team bonding activities, look at the time spent on meetings. The time dedicated to intra-team status meetings should be at around two hours a week per employee.

So, if you have a team of five:
5x15 min daily status meetings + 30 min weekly/1 h bi-weekly. 
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A team bonding activity is also classified on the basis of attendance – at least 80% of all team members need to participate.

How do you bond with your team virtually? 
Bonding with your team in a remote setting can seem challenging at first glance. Especially, if your business operated in an in-house work model prior to the pandemic. After all, many intra-team work initiatives or productive interactions take place naturally when we’re all based in the same office.
However, if you design your remote teamwork around the right practices and tools, it’s possible to maintain effective team bonding, boost employees’ intrinsic motivation, and create and a sense of community. 
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Distributed teams require a different collaboration model, team habits, and rituals to thrive. 

These include:

• Regular daily status checks,
• Weekly or bi-weekly knowledge sharing sessions,
• Weekly or bi-weekly 1-on-1 meetings with the leader,
• Quarterly talent and performance 1-on-1 meetings with HR.

If you observe these activities, you’ll see a boost in business contribution from team members, as compared to their levels prior to routines’ introduction.

How do you do team bonding? 
‍As mentioned in the section above, effective team bonding comes down to regular synchronous communication routines. Effective team bonding initiatives will strengthen cross- and intra-team relations and boost your employees’ motivation and productivity. It will also reduce the time leaders dedicate to 1-on-1 interactions, such as providing guidance via asynchronous communication channels.

Work habits for a leader and a team – key elements
To assess whether you’re creating the right work habits for your leaders and team members, it’s worth being aware of the following:

• Daily routines – they are the daily meetings you observe for your team, such as daily stand-ups. They should last about 15 minutes a day (a total of 75 minutes per week).
• Weekly routines – these routines are twice as long as your daily’s (i.e., 30 minutes), and allow your team to discuss the most important issues they’ve encountered throughout the week.
• Details on routines (e.g., length, frequency) – to monitor the effectiveness of your routines, you should calculate their length and frequency. This way, you’ll know you’re dedicating the right amount of time for each meeting type, and that you’re not skipping any of them.
• Percentage of people in a team involved – to count a team bonding initiative as effective, at least 80% of your team members need to be in attendance.

Team status & bonding meetings – which metrics should you track?
Monitoring routines gives you insight into the number of regular intra- and cross-team meetings employees take part in throughout a given period. To assess how effective team bonding initiatives and what influence routines have on your employees, consider the three metrics below:

• Average routine time, i.e., how long your weekly and daily meetings last. Do they last longer or shorter than the recommended time (described above)?
• Number of daily and weekly meetings, i.e., how many meetings are there per day and week. Do all scheduled meetings take place?
• Percentage of the team involved. How many intra- and cross-team routines have at least 80% of all invitees in presence?

Start off by looking at all recurring meetings in the team calendar. Next, categorize them into weekly and daily routines. Assess each event on the basis of the three metrics above. As a result, you’ll gain insight into how your team bonding and status meetings impact your employees.