Managing complex and temporary organizations
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Revision as of 08:58, 12 June 2017
How does a team need to be constructed to be successful? What will it take to make a temporary but complex organization work together as a team? In this Wiki article, the main concept of an organization will be run through, by looking at what is needed to work as a team that can fulfill the mission as fast and well as possible. The article will look into what differences it makes, when the organization is not only temporary but also complex. In this case there is an end date to the work, but the organization still need to interact as a team to be able to complete the task or mission.
To have a functional and effective organization, there needs to be a clear allocation of the responsibilities. How this is meet, is run through by introducing the responsibility chart, thereby introducing DECA (Decide, Execute, Consult and Advise). Besides that, effective teamworking is introduced, by introducing a leader, a generator, an evaluator and lastly a finisher. Furthermore, requirements for how the team is put together needs to be meet, since it neither should be to diverse nor to alike, this being referred to as the “manageable zone in teambuilding”. Lastly the team will develop over time, but how it will develop is both dependent on time and cost, which in the world of construction is limited. This, especially, is a challenge for temporary teams, but non the less important to improve and maintain.
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Organizations and teamwork
An organization can be defined as a group of people that is structured or managed to meet a need or pursue collective goals [1]. In order to have a healthy organization, roles and responsibilities must be assigned to the group members. But more importantly is the application of the teamwork concept to the group. A team can be descripted as a group of people given value to the group [2](Winch, p. 426), given a collective goal and a variety of complementary skills. By working together as a team, the organization will achieve its goal more effectively by using each skill of the group members combined with good collaboration and communication. Thus, the effectiveness of a good teamwork should not be underestimated.
Unfortunately, investing in team building is costly, which often results in low prioritizing. But even though initial performance drops during team building [2] (Winch, p. 428), value will be added to the project on the longer run.
Complex and temporary projects
Effective teamworks
Four propositions of Winch
Winch mentions four propositions to an effective teamwork[2] (winch, p. 426). The propositions is run through below.
Finite maximum size
Research has found that a finite maximum size for a team is between 5 to 7 members. If the team grows to large, relationships will break down causing the team to fragment.
Complementary skills
Research has found that a mix of complementary skills within the group is necessary, both within technical skills required for task execution but also within teamworking skills. Obviously, the team needs to consist of members with the necessary technical skills to fulfill the task, but it is also important that the members are not too alike, nor too different on team skills. Too alike team skills will cause “groupthink”, which will result in poor mind mapping and thereby solving skills, while too diverse team skills will cause conflicts. This is illustrated by figure XX.
Clear goals and appropriate incentives
Clear goals and appropriate incentives with an addition of mutual accountability is necessary for an effective teamwork. To make the team effective, it is important that the team members share the same goals and incentives. Though, a common goal will always be threatened by individual underlying interests or personal agendas. Therefore, it is very important to make each goal of the team members clear through team-building, see the next proposition.
Evolutionary circle
Every team goes through an evolutionary circle, whether team-building is prioritized or not. This is usually presented as a four-phase circle:
• Forming, which is where the working group is being formed by putting individual members into a team
• Storming. Here each member will negotiate their position in the team. Personal agendas are revealed, and power struggles and conflicts are worked through. Though, sometimes a fully agreement is not met by all the participants, and conflicts will be hidden under false consensus. This phenomenon is called pseudo teams.
• Norming. Here norms are defined and also trust between members will be build-up. This is referred to as the potential team.
• Performing. This is the part where teamwork is added to the group through team-building, which causes the team to be more valuable than the sum of each individual member. This I referred to as the real team.
The last phase, performing, is only met through team-building. Since team-building is a cost, which in the beginning of the process is costing more than what it gives, it is sometimes not prioritized. But if team-building is prioritized, value will be added once the storming phase is over. By team-building pseudo teams can be avoided, which is very important in order to achieve a functional and effective group.
The evolutionary circle is illustrated by figure XX. Here the four phases are present, and it is seen how the performance impact de- or increase through the phases and team effectiveness.
