Team Types

Team management is the ability of an individual or an organization to administer and coordinate a group of individuals to perform a task. Team management involves teamwork, communication, objective setting and performance appraisals.

Moreover, team management is the capability to identify problems and resolve conflicts within a team.

A team is a group of people but every group is not a team. A team is usually small and exists for relatively long period of time till the objective for which it is formed is accomplished.  The purpose of forming a team is to improve quality, methods, and productivity.

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

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

• Formal team – It is a team formed to accomplish a particular objective or a particular set of objectives. The objective of the team formation is called as ‘mission’ or ‘statement of purpose’. It may consist of a charter, list of team members, letter of authorization and support from the management.
• Informal team – This type of team will not have the documents that a formal team will have. But an informal team consist versatile membership as the members in it can be changed as per the requirements of the task on hand.

A team can also be classified into following types depending on a given situation and constraints that prohibit the formation of either formal or informal teams, as

Virtual team – A virtual team is usually formed to overcome the constraint of geographical locations which separate members. Some of the characteristics of a virtual team are as follows –

• It consists of members who live in different places and who may never meet one another during the course of accomplishment of the goal of the team.
• In a virtual team, the members make use of different technologies like telephone, internet, etc. to coordinate within the team for the achievement of the common goal.

Process improvement team – It is formed to discover the modifications required in a particular process in order to improve it. It consists of members who belong to various groups that will be affected by the proposed changes, thus making it cross functional in nature. Process improvement teams tend to come together around very specific kinds of objectives. A team will focus on a specific business or operational process, have urgency about getting rapid results, and be highly committed to making things happen. These teams prioritize low-hanging fruit – things that are high impact and very doable – and that will generate a lot of return on an investment. Sufficient management support is needed, but you also need to have the right team to drive improvement to an overall process.

Quality Teams – Quality teams tend to be a little longer lasting and drive efficiency. When you look at things that don’t create a quality output, you’ll often find you can eliminate them and their associated activities. By doing this, you can generate many possible activities to improve a particular process.

Self-directed and work group teams – It has wide-ranging goals that are ongoing and repetitive. This necessitates the team to carry out activities on a daily basis. They are usually formed to make decisions on matters such as safety, personnel, maintenance, quality, etc.

Self-managed teams correlate very highly to the concept of quality or kaizen circles. They tend to be formed around repeating processes that occur on a routine basis – for example, a group of employees who meet every day to discuss events, possible improvements, and progress. They are autonomous and self-organized. As such, these teams require minimal supervision from management, and the team leaders guide, rather than direct, their teams. These teams are agile and can take on a wide variety of projects.

Ad-hoc Teams – Ad-hoc teams come together to solve a very specific bigger problem. They tend to have a limited lifespan and may only come together one time to accomplish a specific set of goals. They usually come together with a well-defined purpose and vision. These teams could be interdepartmental or cross-functional, and could be dealing with very specific stakeholders that need to be addressed as part of solving the particular problem.