Team Dynamics & Performance

Team Dynamics & Performance– A team is a group of people but every group is not a team. Management supports the team process by,

• Ensuring a constancy of purpose
• Reinforcing positive results,
• Sharing business results
• Giving people a sense of mission
• Developing a realistic and integrated plan
• Providing direction and support

Team Types
A team can generally be classified as ‘formal’ or ‘informal’.

Other type of team is a Virtual team – A virtual team is usually formed to overcome the constraint of geographical locations which separate members.

Team Roles and Member Selection
A team performs optimally when all the members are assigned appropriate roles and they understand their roles in terms of the overall functioning of the team.

Champion

• Sets and maintains broad goals for improvement projects in area of responsibility
• Owns the process

Process Owner

• Maximizes high level process performance
• Launches and sponsors improvement efforts

Team Member

• Participates with project leader (GB or BB)
• Provides expertise on the process being addressed

Coach

• Some businesses have coaches who support the GBs and others coach the BBs.
• Trains Green Belts with help from BBs and MBB

Green Belt (GB)

• Leads and/or participates on Six Sigma project teams
• Identifies project opportunities within their organization
• Know and applies Six Sigma methodologies and tools appropriately

Black Belt (BB)

• Proficient in Six Sigma tools and their application
• Leads/supports high impact projects to bottom line full-time
• Directly supports MBB’s culture change activities
• Mentors and coaches Green Belts to optimize functioning of Six Sigma teams

Team Stages
Most teams go through four development stages before they become productive – forming, storming, norming, and performing. Bruce W. Tuckman first identified the four development stages, which are

• Forming – Expectations are unclear. When a team forms, its members typically start out by exploring the boundaries of acceptable group behavior with leader directs the team. Members please each other and take pride in being part of new team. This period is also called as honeymoon period.
• Storming – Consists of conflict and resistance to the group’s task and structure. Conflict often occurs and disagreements slow down the team as every team member positions his position. However, if dealt with appropriately, these stumbling blocks can be turned into performance later. This is the most difficult stage for any team to work through.
• Norming – A sense of group cohesion develops and team members resolve conflicts by agreeing on mutually agreeable ideas. Team members use more energy on data collection and analysis as they begin to test theories and identify root causes. The team develops a routine and trust amongst members.
• Performing – The team begins to work effectively and cohesively as each team member is independent with responsibility and function.
• Transitioning – In this last phase, the team is split as the project ends. If project’s scope is increased then as per the scope, selective team members continue and rest go back to other work.

Team Tools
Various tools are used by team members and leaders during team formation and it’s different phases which includes

Brainstorming – The brainstorming technique was introduced by Alex Faickney Osborn in his book Applied Imagination in 1930. It is used as a tool to create ideas about a particular topic and to find creative solutions to a problem.

Nominal Group Technique (NGT) – The nominal group technique was introduced by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson in 1971. It is a kind of brainstorming that encourages every participant to express his/her views. This technique is used to create a ranked list of ideas. In this technique, all the participants are requested to write their ideas anonymously and the moderator collects the written ideas and each is voted on by the group.

Multi-voting – Multivoting, which is also called NGT voting or nominal prioritization, is a simple technique used by teams to choose the most significant or highest priority item from a list with limited discussion and difficulty. Generally it follows the brainstorming technique.

Team Communication
Communication is the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge between sender and receiver through an accepted code of symbols. It is a two way process. The process is as

• an information source or sender, which produces a message
• a transmitter or encoding , which encodes the message into signals
• a channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
• a receiver or decoding, which decodes the message from the signal
• a destination or receiver, where the message arrives.
• noise, is any interference with the message traveling along the channel

Communication Types – Communication is either verbal or non-verbal.

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