High Performance Team Development

• TEAM TRACKER™: Team Development Tracking Software
• TEAM™: Team Evaluation and Awareness Measure
• Groups at Work: Developing the High Performance Team

Developing High Performance Teams

As many organizations have learned quite painfully, quality is not the end; rather it is the means to improving the ability of the organization to meet the needs of customers in a cost effective manner. Since customers are continually changing, the organization must also maintain an ongoing commitment to continuous learning and improvement. The key to successful implementation of continuous learning and quality improvement is developing those work teams which are ultimately responsible for implementing quality improvement.

To consistently produce results, work groups must be able to develop effective and nurturing relationships built around a shared purpose, shared values, and openness; they must learn how to give and receive feedback and to solve problems and conflicts; they must be able to use quality improvement tools and techniques; and they must be able to stay focused on results. This three-day training program teaches the members of intact work groups how to achieve these four interrelated goals. Specifically, the Developing the Continuous Learning Team program teaches team members how to

• Develop team rules which encourage collaboration and productivity
• Develop and maintain an open learning climate
• Build mutual commitment to shared values
• Develop internal processes for identifying and managing interpersonal conflicts
• Use quality improvement tools such as flowcharting, value analysis, cause and effect analysis, and others to analyze and improve quality problems
• Engage in continuous learning

This program can be run in-house or off-site. Participants receive an easy to use guidebook which highlights the skill areas needed to be a successful team member and tells them how to succeed as a member of a continuously learning team.

TEAM TRACKER^tm

Teams are common in organizations. Team Tracker is a Web based software system that is designed to help teams and organizations reach a level of high performance. Team Tracker is an interactive system that helps teams and organizations to:

• Develop and register important team information such as the team charter, critical roles to meet the charter, team members and their profiles, and critical team metrics and measures of success
• Coordinate team efforts with those of other work groups and teams by sharing information about what different teams are doing and what they are learning
• Develop a shared approach to working together, commitment and mutual accountability
• Assess where the team is within the six dimensions of high performance
• Identify learning needs and improve team performance

Team Tracker helps organizations implement team based solutions by making it easy for teams in diverse situations and locations interact and share their learning. It also helps organizations with the task of keeping track of so many teams, evaluating progress, and rewarding high performance.

TEAM^tm: Team Evaluation and Awareness Measure

Call us about our OPEN family of software
for scoring and administration of TEAM!!

Purpose

Most of the work in organizations takes place in a team context, yet most teams do not perform up to their potential. The TEAM instrument provides a convenient way to assess the team's current performance and what it needs to do if it intends to move up the performance curve toward high performance.

Description

This thirty item diagnostic instrument provides users information about the extent to which the team has developed a truly shared purpose, shared performance goals, a common approach to working together and solving problems, shared commitment and accountability. This self-scoring instrument provides users specific feedback about the level of trust and openness in the group and what can be done to improve overall team performance.

Applications

• Assess the effectiveness of team working conditions.
• Evaluate the extent of agreement about methods of working together.
• Assess the morale of the team.
• Assess the level of commitment to team purposes and goals.
• Assess the level and quality of feedback and accountability.
• Target areas for performance improvement and change.

GROUPS AT WORK:
Developing the High Performance Work Team

By: Keith Q. Owen and Oscar G. Mink

The authors frame a five phase model of group process with clear and sensible discussions of teams, decision-making, leadership, productivity, culture, and work. They then turn good form to function through over thirty hands-on techniques that managers can use to improve group performance. Each technique includes specific instructions, sample forms and an example taken from a firm or organization where it has been used successfully.

• How can managers use divergent individual interests to achieve group purposes?
• What is a "non-work state" and how can it be avoided?
• How do leaders keep groups on target?
• When a project ends, how do groups celebrate success or acknowledge failure, and then move on to new opportunities?

The answers to these and other questions provide a cohesive perspective on group process on both a conceptual and practical level. In a field that has been strong on theory but short on practice, this book provides a fresh and necessary alternative.

279 pages, hardbound ISBN: 0-87778-196-6

Back to Top