Teams can solve complex problems, achieve challenging goals, and generate innovative ideas. However, teams can also be slow, inefficient, make poor decisions, and underperform individuals doing the same work. The key is to be intentional about whether a team is the best option. Review the materials below to determine whether a team is the best option to approach your task.

What are Teams and When Do You Need One?

A team is a group of people whose collective skills, knowledge, and abilities are combined in ways that result in better decisions and stronger performance than the sum of its individual members.

Teams are highly interdependent - they plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress of tasks and projects collectively. Team members need one another to get work done. In contrast, if a team meets together primarily to share information and make a few occasional decisions, but most of the work done independently, then it's a group. Workgroup members are not interdependent in that they don’t need each other to get the work done.

When deciding whether a team is the best fit for the task at hand, consider:

1. Complexity/Nature of work
   • Is it a simple task? Can the work be done by one person? (No team is needed)
   • Is it a complex task? Do you need a combination of different skills, knowledge and abilities? Do you need different perspectives? (Team is needed)
2. Is there a common purpose?
   • Teams are most effective when they have shared goals, not just a collection of individual goals.
3. What does success depend on?
   • Teams work best if the success of one task/person depends on the success of others on the team; and if the success of the entire team depends on the success of each individual.
4. Do you have adequate resources to support the team?
   • While teams have a greater collective capacity, working in teams requires greater resources: 
     • time investment/coordination,
     • communication needs,
     • equipment,
     • staffing,
     • access to information needed. 
   • The bigger the team, the more carefully you will need to manage the process losses (factors that make it difficult for a team to live up to its full potential increase).

Knowing the answer to these questions will help you decide whether a team is needed and be intentional about why you need a team.

Defining a clear purpose and clarifying the roles and responsibilities are key steps for building an effective team.

Review Quick Guides

Define a Clear Purpose and Describe Success

• How do effective teams agree on their goals?
• What are the signs your team does not have a clear purpose?
• How do you coach your team to improve?

Defining a Clear Purpose for Team Success Quick Guide

Clarify Roles and Responsibilities

• What are the benefits of clear roles and responsibilities?
• What are the signs that improvement is needed?
• What are the steps you can take to prevent your team from becoming complacent?

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities Quick Guide

Apply What You've Learned

Work through five different examples to see if you can determine the best course of action for building a team.

Self-Check Quiz

Once the team is launched, managing team dynamics effectively can help the team combine collective skills, knowledge, and abilities in ways that result in better decisions and stronger performance. Team dynamics are behaviors, processes, and changes that take place within a team. The following steps allow the team to achieve positive dynamics and are critical to a team's success:

• Establish norms that foster psychological safety,
• Establish clear decision-making processes, and
• Manage team conflict.

Review Quick Guides to Team Dynamics

Establishing Norms and Expectations

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. Teams with high psychological safety communicate and coordinate their efforts effectively, resulting in stronger performance and better decisions.

• What does a team with high psychological safety look like?
• What are the norms that foster psychological safety?
• What are the signs you might have a problem and how to improve?

Establishing Norms and Expectations Quick Guide

Establishing Clear Decision-Making Processes

Being intentional about how decisions are made helps teams avoid conflict and wasted effort, and improves the quality of team decisions. Note that psychological safety affects team decision-making. Without it, even a crystal clear decision-making process will break down because people will not feel safe raising important questions or concerns.

• When consensus might not be the best option?
• When does expertise matter most in the decision-making process?
• What is a "Groupthink" and why should you avoid one?

Establishing Clear Decision-Making Processes Quick Guide

Managing Team Conflict

Teams that take a proactive approach to resolving conflict are much more productive and effective than teams that address conflict only when they are forced to. Depending on its source, conflict can have a positive outcome. For example, a task conflict can be helpful for teams making complex decisions, analyzing a difficult problem, or coming up with new ideas or methods. The key is to not let the conflict get in the way of productivity and performance.

Reviewing the quick guides from the Managing Conflict module will help you better understand the four most common sources of conflict and how to approach them, depending on the conflict source. The quick guides on Mastering Conflict Management Skills also provide more detail on specific tips and techniques that are useful when approaching team conflict.

Review the Managing Conflict Module for Assessing Conflict & Mastering Conflict Management Skills

Apply What You've Learned

Think about your team, then answer the questions to see how well your team meets the criteria of an effective team. This will allow you to see which areas of teamwork are strong and where there is opportunity for improvement.

Interactive Team Dynamics Self-Assessment