## Q: I’m constantly feeling like my team is moving too slowly. How can I help my team move faster?
As a founder, a PM, and even as an engineer, I ALWAYS wished we could move faster. This feeling never went away, and it won’t for you. Especially as your company grows.
Though speed shouldn’t be your number one priority (vs. say impact, or picking the right problems to tackle), it is highly correlated with success. Especially in the early stages of company building.
So how do you help your team move faster? I spoke to a number of founders, reflected on my own experience, and [took this question to Twitter](https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1339738147949662208). Below, you’ll find twelve concrete ways to increase your team’s velocity, including dozens of examples from founders and product leaders. Here’s a handy summary:
My advice is to review this list with your leadership team, pick 1-2 strategies, and spend the next month/quarter putting them into action. See if this makes a dent. If they do, great! If not, try something else next month/quarter. Keep experimenting.
Let’s dive in.
Ways increase your team’s velocity
#### 1. 🔎 Narrow your team’s focus
The fewer things you focus on, the better those remaining things will go. I’ve seen this work miracles time, and time again.
#### 2. 🛡 Protect deep work time
“To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.” — Cal Newport
#### 3. 🤝 Sync more regularly to align on priorities and unblock blockers
The faster you need to go, the more regularly you should be syncing. Keep these meetings short, focused, and decision-oriented.
#### 4. 👎 Fire underperformers
Sometimes the hardest thing is the right thing.
#### 5. 🗣 Encourage more communication between team members
Get cross-functional team members talking directly, especially when they’re blocked or confused about something. A quick call/DM can save days of wasted time.
#### 6. ✍️ Facilitate async communication
For non-timely questions, avoid distracting team members by making it easy (and normal) to communicate asynchronously.
#### 7. 👀 Loop engineers (and other team members) in earlier
The more your team knows about the why and what, and feels the customer’s pain points, the more motivated, pro-active, and creative they’ll be. Also, they’ll lose less information in translation.
#### 8. 💪 Empower your cross-functional teams
Form cross-functional teams, with all of the resources necessary to ship, and empower them to drive outcomes.
#### 9. 🤲 Nurture psychological safety
“After years of research, Google discovered the secret weapon to building a great team was creating a sense of psychological safety.” — Inc
#### 10. 🤝 Align on what success for the team means
Teams rowing in the same direction move faster.
#### 11. 🤔 Anticipate risks and edge-cases
A bit more planning up-front can save you a lot of pain later.
#### 12. 🔁 Switch your product development process
Experimenting with new product development processes can often uncover better ways of working.
#### 13. 👩💻 Optimize your code review process
Talk to your engineers about opportunities to speed up their review, approval, and deployment process.
#### 14. ⚙️ Invest in unit testing
The more confidence engineers have in their code working, the faster they’ll be able to make changes and ship.
#### 15. 🥇 Hire more people
Sometimes the answer is simple: more (great) people.
Have you found anything else to significantly increase your team’s velocity? Please share in the comments 👇
See you next week!
🔥 Job opportunities
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🧠 Inspiration for the week ahead
1. Watch: Get better at copywriting by (community member) Harry Dry
2. Subscribe: 50 Days of Writing by David Perell 3. Calculate: SaaS LTV calculator by Christoph Janz
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Sincerely,
Lenny 👋