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6 Comments

How do you motivate a team of people to give their off hours to a project?

I've been trying to motivate myself and a group of people to work with me on an app. The idea is generally liked and we all see the usefulness of the app.

I've setup sync twice a week and it went well to start with. But as time went along, we've started to fade off a little.

I tried simplifying and have small tasks to keep achieving goals regularly, but that hasn't been enough.

Looking for more ideas here.

  1. 7

    Okay, just invented a new framework for your team:

    1. Create a GitHub issue for every task that you guys need to launch. Keep adding tasks as they appear.

    2. Assign 1 virtual point to each task.

    3. Each day that a task is not completed, add a point to it.

    4. When you finally launch, everyone gets the share of the company / revenue based on the percentage of earned points relative to all points that came into existence.

    In theory, this will work perfect:

    • Everyone will try to take a task they are best suited for so that they can complete it faster then others
    • Tasks that no one is good at keep accumulating points. So at some point someone will become good at it just because it rewards so many points
    • Everyone will be motivated to help others complete tasks so that others earn less points. PR reviews will be conducted faster then at any other company
    1. 2

      This is a pretty cool idea!

      I would just add, though, that maybe it's better to do it based on number of hours or story points, etc. because tasks will have different levels of complexity (ie. it wouldn't be fair for a small / big task to get similar number of points).

      1. 1

        We'd see better in practice, but I think all tasks should be equal initially. Hard ones will either accumulate points or break up into smaller ones anyway.

  2. 1

    I think if your team isn't being paid then it needs to be small enough in scope to have MVP built in a weekend max, or else people fall off. That's just my experience.

  3. 1

    It depends. Maybe you can give us more context on what the project is, what your role is and what their roles are.

  4. 1

    You're employing them, so:

    1. Inspire them with a viable project that will provide them real results.
    2. Put their position under a contract.
    3. Build trust.
    4. Have conflict.
    5. Call for their commitment.
    6. Hold them accountable.
    7. Let them go if it isn't working.
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