Sample Article

The Lifecycle of a Successful Team

How to initiate and support teams so that they succeed and deliver results

Background

In the course of conducting dozens of organizational assessments over the past eight years, I have had the privilege to observe at close quarters what many companies and institutions on the quality journey are doing -- what has worked for them, and what has not. An organizational assessment normally includes interviews with teams that have attempted some kind of improvement initiative, and it doesn't take long to discover that there is huge variation between different organizations in their ability to use teams effectively.

High-performing companies are usually very proficient in using team approaches -- and typically employ a variety of team structures to complement or even replace the traditional organizational hierarchy. Some, such as Hewlett-Packard, are systematically striving to reduce the cycle time for team efforts -- so that the gains can be obtained sooner and more team initiatives launched.

In other organizations, when teams are set up to fix problems or to improve processes, these initiatives often come to naught -- or fail to demonstrate any tangible results -- in spite of everyone's best efforts. Of course, team efforts are not the answer to every situation, nor are they a substitute for individual inspiration, talent and effort. But team approaches are powerful and versatile -- particularly for solving problems and improving processes -- and companies that cannot figure out how to use teams effectively are badly handicapped by this inability.

This article sets out some of the learnings from my own experience and observation of teams.

The lifecycle of a team effort

Launching a team initiative is rather like launching an expedition to the Moon -- many actions must take place correctly, each at the appropriate time, for the expedition to accomplish its goal and for the crew to return safely. Many of these actions involve people on the ground, rather than the crew who go on the mission. Some minor malfunctions can be overcome by a resourceful crew, but a major error will usually cause the mission to fail.

We can analyse the lifecycle of a team effort -- just like a space mission -- to determine the various actions that are essential, and hence the various potential failure points. What must happen in order to pull off a successful mission, and what can go wrong?

Exhibit 1 below sets out the main phases of a problem-solving or process-improvement team initiative, and the key success factors at each phase.

Exhibit 1

Formation

One of the keys to success in management-initiated team efforts is to focus on what's important -- i.e. to set up few teams dealing with key issues. So, before deciding to launch any new project, management should satisfy themselves that they are not simply diluting other more important efforts.

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