Making Teams Effective

Virtually every organization uses teams to solve complex problems, or to implement large scale, complicated projects. With the integration and globalization of organizations, it is becomingly increasingly common for team members to live on different continents, and may never have met their teammates in person. With this environment, some suggestions for insuring that teams are effective can be as simple as:

- Make sure the objective is appropriate for a team solution. Teams are appropriate where creativity is required. Teams are less effective when a situation with tight "cast in stone" deadlines are necessary.

- Make sure a reasonable definition of consensus is agreed upon and applied.

- Not all of the team's activities need to be performed by the entire team; nothing works better for a team than the approach of "divide and conquer."

- Some time should be spent, especially early on, to socialize and harmonize the team. A good team needs strong relationships, and a keen understanding of the strengths and limitations of other team members.

- Apply 21st century collaboration tools; video conferences, document and drawing editing programs that can be used by multiple team members and manage all changes simultaneously.

- Match people and personalities to specific team roles. The leader guides the process and helps build consensus. An administrator updates the project schedule, maintains the action lists, keeps meeting minutes etc. The facilitator leads the team discussions and make sure they stay on track; many teams use the leader as the facilitator. A writer develops team reports, and presentations; many teams combine the writer and administrator roles. The remaining two roles are those of analyzer - somebody has to evaluate options and run the numbers; and at least one idea generator - someone creative and capable of stimulating the team's thought process.

Sometimes the human interaction side of establishing a team gets minimized or ignored so we can "get right to results." A little effort up front to ensure a team will be effective goes a long way to getting those results.

Synchronous LLC is committed to maintaining a continuing dialogue on operational excellence and best practices for the process manufacturing industry. To pose a question, contribute a best practice, or otherwise add to the dialogue, send a note to RobBaldwin@SynchronousLLC.com . To subscribe to our weekly newsletter send your preferred email contact address to Webmaster@SynchronousLLC.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.