How do I build an effective team?

Team

n. a small group of people with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and set of specific performance goals. Its members are committed to working with each other to achieve the team’s purpose and hold each other fully and jointly accountable for the team’s results

Basics
The key question to ask oneself before deciding to form a team is… Does the activity require more than one person to attain the desired result? Teams are not always the most effective solution, only call a team together if you really need to. Consider the amount of true interdependence.

Human Factor
It’s human nature, even part of our culture, to form teams rather than assign an individual to address an activity. This is probably due to the enormity or inter-organisational nature of most breakdowns, tasks, or desired performance improvements that we encounter. Trust your judgement and your decision will be sound.

When building a great team, the following diagram is useful, the whole foundation of a team is it's purpose, so you should work up from the bottom of the diagram. So often the team [and an inexperienced coach/manager/facilitator] will focus on poor relationships [the ubiquitous team building event!],  However,most of the roots of poor team work can be found in the other three areas.

GOALS Does everyone in the team see the same picture? How will the team measure success?

Basics
Appropriately chartering a team makes a significant difference in how effectively the team is launched and managed, and the charter influences the quality of the team’s output. Answering the following questions will prepare the Chartering Manager to effectively charter the team:

• What, precisely, is the breakdown or opportunity?
• What is the linkage to a business objective?
• What would a breakthrough make possible?
• How can I ensure the implementation of the team’s deliverables or decisions?
• What skills are needed to solve the problem?
• Who possesses the required skills?
• Who is the client/customer for the team’s output?

Once the Chartering Manager has answered these questions, they are ready to develop the first draft of the Charter.

An effective Charter includes:

• Purpose of the team (performance challenge)
• Scope of the team (boundaries, parameters)
• Expected deliverables (tangible outputs, work products, breakthrough expectation)
• The client for the deliverables
• Conditions of satisfaction (indicators of success)
• How team success is measured
• Time frames for deliverables
• Team empowerment/authority

Responsibilities of the Chartering Manger:

• Create the draft Charter, including the above components.
• Identify and recruit the Team Leader and involve her/him in development of the charter.
• Assist the Team Leader in team member identification and recruitment if needed.
• Commit to support and coach the team to accomplish its purpose.
• Communicate status report expectations to the Team Leader.
• Clear team roadblocks if the team is unable to do so.
• Communicate new, relevant information to the team.
• Provide appropriate visibility and "air cover" for the team.

Note: Shape the charter enough to indicate direction but flexibly enough to allow the modification required for team buy-in and commitment to develop. This team "purposing" serves to bond the team and build understanding and individual team member ownership. Also leave plenty of solution space for the team to determine specific goals, timing, and approach.

ROLES Is everyone clear on their role? Are there overlaps, or gaps in responsibility?

Basics
If people in a team are unclear of their roles then the team is unlikely to succeed, in addition  to "technical roles" subject expertise the team should also consider their "team roles". Meredith Belbin has brought some insights to this. So when forming a team consider the following

• Who will be core team members? Who will be brought into the team on an "as needed" basis?
• How is the leadership of the team being defined?
• Who is responsible for allocating work? What system of accountability is to be put in place?
• What are the team team roles that individuals can perform?
• What are the strengths and allowable weaknesses of team players?
• Do we need an accountability matrix, which clearly defines responsibilities?

PROCEDURES Do they exist? Who takes what decisions in this team? Which decisions are whole team decisions?

Basics
Teams often evolve processes and procedures with out giving much thought to them, usually these are based on formal project milestones rather than "people processes" Some points to consider.

• How do we make our decisions? Which decisions are "whole team" and which are individual decisions that the team accept?
• When taking "whole group" decisions what method will be used?
• How will the team meet? What are the ground rules for meetings? How often does the team meet?
• How will the team communicate with each other?
• What tools will the team use, to plan, problem solve?
• What measures of success will be put in place? Who monitors and reports progress against them?

RELATIONSHIPS ? How does the team work together, as previously stated many of the seeds of conflict lie in the first three areas.

Basics
Teams often do not  talk about these issues until it is too late, often when deadlines are missed and the pressure on these issues emerge and it not dealt with cause dysfunction and unresolved conflict leading to team failure.

• What sort of relationships have evolved and why?
• Is there a "blame culture" or a "learning culture"
• What are levels of trust like in the team?
• What feedback mechanisms exist
• What are the cultures and values that the team can share, or need to respect?
• How does the group resolve conflict?

You may need to use an "outside" facilitator to design a process to work through the questions outlined above.

This page was last updated on: 24 September 2000
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