High performance teams

Revision as of 12:56, 7 April 2023

Introduction

According to the widely accepted definition, high performance teams (HPTs) are a concept in organizational behavior and management that refers to a team of individuals who work together to achieve a common goal. It provides a framework for teams to enable high levels of performance and reach their goals more effectively. The concept is described by several key components, which include shared goals, well-defined roles and responsibilities, strong communication, trust, well-executed decision-making, adaptability, and continuous improvement.^[1] When implemented effectively, it can lead to increased productivity, team morale, and improved quality. Given the nature of this concept, it is used in many areas of the professional world including healthcare, sports, IT, the automotive and retail industries, and R&D just to highlight a few. It can be applied to almost any kind of team, meaning it can be applied specifically to project teams as well. Nowadays, numerous companies, like Volvo and Boeing, are successfully using the high performance teams concept within their project teams.^[2] This article focuses on

• Providing guiding principles around building a high performing project team
• Discussing the benefits of the application of the concept
• And describing key elements of the implementation strategy.

Concept background

Historical overview

As mentioned in the introduction, high performance teams are prevalent in many modern professional fields outside of the corporate world as well. However, even though the concept was only described in the second half of the XX. century^[3], high performance teams that possessed attributes like strong leadership, clear goals, and a shared commitment to excellence existed throughout history.

In ancient times, one of the most successful high performance teams was the Macedonian phalanx under Alexander the Great. The phalanx was a formation of soldiers armed with long spears and shields, and it was highly effective in battles due to the discipline and coordination of the soldiers.

During the Middle Ages, knights and their horses were also considered high performance teams. Knights had to work closely with their horses, which were trained for battle and had to be directed by the knight's movements and commands. The success of knights in battle depended on their ability to work together as a team, with each member playing a specific role and supporting each other.

In modern times, sports teams have been a prime example of high performance teams. For instance, the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls basketball team is considered the greatest team in NBA history setting multiple records that season. The reason the team could be this successful is that it had strong leadership both on- and off-court, excellent teamwork, and shared commitment to a mutual goal of winning the championship.

Stages of Group Development

In 1965, Bruce Tuckman proposed a model^[3] which described the different phases he thought groups must go through during their evolution to grow, face challenges, tackle problems, plan and find solutions, and deliver results. When creating these phases he also created that reference state which served as a foundation for the high performing team concept. The 4 phases or stages^[4] he identified and described are:

Forming

During the Forming stage of team development, team members are usually excited to be part of the team and about the work ahead. They often have high expectations and at the same time, they may also feel some anxiety regarding their place and performance in the team. They are also likely to ask a lot of questions reflecting both their excitement and the uncertainty or anxiety they might be feeling about their place in the team. In this stage, the main objective is to create a team with a clear structure, goals, direction, and roles so that members begin to build trust.

Storming

In this stage, members are trying to see how the team will respond to differences and how it will handle conflict as they discover that the team can't live up to all of their early expectations. Focus is likely to shift from the tasks at hand to feelings of frustration or anger with the team's progress or processes. The frustration or disagreements are openly expressed and may be directed toward other members or the leadership of the team. During the Storming stage, the team has to refocus on its goals, maybe even breaking the goals into smaller, achievable steps while the individual members have to develop both task-related skills and group process and conflict management skills.

Norming

In the Norming stage, team members begin to close the gap between their individual expectations and the reality of the team's experience. If the team previously managed to set more flexible and inclusive norms and expectations, then members should start to feel a higher sense of comfort and increased acceptance of others in the team. Constructive feedback is both possible and welcomed in this stage as members make a conscious effort to resolve problems and achieve group harmony. This leads to more frequent and better communication within the team and allows the members to return their focus to the team's tasks resulting in an increase in productivity both individually and team-wise.

Performing

During the Performing stage, members feel attached to the team and feel satisfied with the team's progress and effectiveness. Members are aware of their own and each other's strengths and weaknesses and feel confident in both their individual abilities and each other's abilities as well. Differences among members are also appreciated and used to enhance performance. "Can do" attitude is prevalent as are offers to assist one another thanks to roles becoming more fluid, allowing members to take on various roles and responsibilities if needed. This makes the environment ideal for the team to make significant progress toward its goals. Commitment is high and so does the competence of the team members who are also actively encouraged to deepen their knowledge and skills, and to continuously improve the team development. Accomplishments across the team are measured and celebrated.

It is during this Performing stage that high performance teams emerge. By this point, team members have established a sense of trust and cohesion, and they are able to work together seamlessly to achieve their goals. They are highly productive, innovative, and efficient, and they are able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

In project management, the group development model is also extensively used by project managers to assemble teams and guide them toward success. However, the progression journey is generally more fluid and may not always be linear as teams can progress from one step to the other only to take a step back at a later time as the project evolves and progresses. Effective leadership and clear communication are key factors in guiding teams through the different stages of group development and ensuring that they reach their full potential.^[3]

Guiding principles

This section aims to introduce project teams and their relation to the high performance team concept. The goal is to get a better understanding of how project teams work, what drivers and barriers they can face and how does a high performing project team "feels like". In general, we can say that when we talk about a project team we mean a team in which:

• The period of cooperation is limited as team members are likely to return to their original field or department after the project is done
• The tasks are complex and require a great amount of knowledge, high level of skills, and good application of professional tools and concepts
• Knowledge and skills are multidisciplinary as members are likely to be selected from different fields or departments

Drivers and barriers of project team performance

In 1983 and 1984 an investigation was conducted^[5] to map out the drivers and barriers of high team performance. Drivers are factors associated with the project environment that are believed to improve a team's performance, while barriers are believed to degrade a team's performance. The findings identified over 60 factors^[5] that were compiled into a larger list. The factors then were further investigated to find the drivers and barriers that have the strongest correlation to a team's performance. As a result, 12 factors were identified^[5] that are statistically significant when it comes to high team performance. These are:

1. Drivers
   • Interesting and stimulating work
   • Recognition of accomplishment (of individual or team)
   • Experienced management personnel
   • Proper technical direction and leadership
   • Qualified project team personnel
   • Professional growth potential
2. Barriers
   • Unclear project objectives and directions
   • Insufficient resources
   • Power struggle and conflict
   • Uninvolved, disinterested senior management
   • Poor job security
   • Shifting goals and priorities

Characteristics of high performance in project teams

In 2000, a paper was presented at PMI® Research Conference^[6]. exploring the relationship between project success and team development. The foundation of the paper is a NASA study on project teams which aimed to identify the characteristics of superior project teams and highlight the behaviors associated with project managers of high performance project teams. Among the key findings, the authors listed those characteristics^[6] that were found to apply to high performance project teams. These characteristics are:

1. Team focus
   • Team members are able to see beyond their own needs and prioritize the project's needs over theirs. Problems are solved with a clear understanding of the project's requirements. Members understand the difference between "nice to have" and "must have" and are able to focus on what brings the project's success closer.
2. Communication
   • Everyone, from leadership to regular team members everyone is committed to sharing information even if the information is only preliminary in an open and honest way.
3. Empowered
   • Team members are able to influence everything that goes on in a project and this influence is balanced with the required competence. These empowered members are the ones who influence through competence as they have the freedom to do it. The importance of continuous learning is very much prevalent.
4. Competence
   • Members possess the required skills and knowledge to perform technical tasks, they have the willingness or motivation to perform, and the ability to fit their own competency into the larger needs of the project as well.
5. Interdependence
   • Team members understand how their work affects the work of others and can undermine each other's competencies fully. They are fully confident that other members will do what they say they will do, and believe the information given by other members.
6. Cohesion
   • Members experience and show strong team identity. They enjoy each other's company and frequently socialize. They are loyal to each other and there is a strong sense of inclusion. There are no second-class members on the team.
7. Commitment
   • Team members refuse to fail and work on problems until they are solved. The project comes first and members are willing to make personal sacrifices to ensure that tasks are successfully completed.
8. Diversity
   • Teams are characterized by the diversity of gender, culture, and age. Members are multidisciplinary and represent a broad range of skills, experience, and competence. Differences are accepted, encouraged, and turned into powerful assets.
9. Structure
   • Team members are aware of the boundaries of their jobs and how jobs are connected. They also know the process for making changes that affect schedules and requirements. Responsibilities are fixed, but the work of the project is everyone's work. People have complete freedom in contacting any person or team within the project when they need help. Competence is the most important distinction, not position.
10. Recognition
    • Recognition of own success and the contributions of individuals and teams within the project. A portion of most meetings is used to draw attention to the achievements and contributions of members. Social events and outings are common and encouraged to celebrate successes. Rewards and bonuses can be given out to increase performance and recognize efforts.

Interview overview conducted with members of high performance project teams

A paper published in the Engineering Management Journal in 2002^[7]. discusses the results of a series of surveys and interviews conducted with members of high performing project teams in the engineering and construction industry. They developed a theme list around the interviews which was later narrowed down as more data became available. The authors eventually ended up with 9 themes which they called "Emerging Themes" as they stood out from the the pool based on the received answers and comments. These themes ranked according to the percentage of respondents commenting on them are as follows^[7]:

1. Team orientation: sense of belonging to a team, working well together
   • This theme represents a broad feeling of being part of a team and enjoying being part of the team
   • Comments ranged from "you [are] part of a team so you can't let others down" to "being part of the project is a rush." There were frequent references to team members being energetic, excited, hard-driving, task-committed, and enthusiastic, and that the team interactions were fun
2. Critical leader behaviors
   • Leader behaviors are perceived to be highly influential
   • Based on these comments, the most important role of the project team leader appears to be to communicate the desired goals and values of the team while a secondary role is to keep members informed of the status of the project
3. Team communication: frequent team meetings
   • This theme discusses the regularity with which meetings were held for members of the project team and with external parties
   • A meeting of some sort was usually held at least weekly with core team members and regular status meetings were held with the entire team. The importance of communication in the form of status reports about how the project was doing was highlighted
4. Ownership: the sense that personal success is directly tied to the project's success
   • This theme was interpreted mostly as a sense of being with the project from beginning to end and a sense of the goals of the project being the goals of the individual
   • Comments about the importance of the alignment of the goals and the willingness to get involved in all aspects of the project to get the job done
5. Location: colocation and/or physical isolation of team
   • Being physically located together enables the "proximity" factor associated with group formation and makes it easier for interpersonal interactions between team members to occur
   • Commenters stated that being physically located in the same office with all or a majority of members of the project team was a contributing factor to the success of the team
6. Performed team building
   • Virtually all the project teams reported using either formal team building (organized seminars, off-site or on-site) and/or some form of informal team building (group events, lunches, casual days, etc.)
   • There did not seem to be any less of a sense of team orientation among the teams that did not engage in explicit team building. Since the interviews were made with high performance project teams, it is possible that the atmosphere of a good project team naturally contains the characteristics that team building seeks to build which explains why team building made no difference
7. Competition: sense of competition with other or previous projects
   • Comments stated that competition in the form of frequent comparisons with other projects was important as a number of the project teams were being evaluated against the performance of past teams or teams running in parallel to them. Competitive comparisons thus provided a practical check as to how they were doing relative to their benchmarks
   • High performance teams can use the checks to reaffirm that they were truly a high performance team
8. Rewards or bonuses for excellence: use of team perks
   • Rewards were often in the form of plaques mounted in the team's office space or in the organization's common area or were given in the form of cash bonuses.
   • They were usually reserved for performance at critical stages in the project and not for overall final project success; i.e., the rewards were given during the project, serving as a motivator for future performance within the project's framework
9. High level support: sponsorship/high profile/high visibility of project
   • A larger number of respondents stated that if the project had high visibility and high-level support then as a result the project had greater access to resources and was more carefully planned and executed than a project not having this visibility
   • Team members felt that they were more willing to give the project the extra attention to ensure its (and their) success as it is more important (for one's career) to do well on a high visibility project than on a low visibility project

Trust and safety as fundamental conditions

^[8].

Benefits of application

It is noticeable how the subsections in the previous section resonate with each other and build upon each other. The drivers of high performance were taken into account when the characteristics of high performance project teams were described, and those same characteristics are appearing in the answers of members of high performance project teams when they are asked about different aspects of their project and group work. It is a form of assurance that the concept does indeed work in reality and that it offers an edge over "regular" project teams and that these high performing teams are indeed more effective in achieving project objectives and delivering quality results on time. To summarize the benefits and the principles we can say that that high performance project teams offer:

1. Increased productivity: High-performance project teams work more efficiently and are more productive than regular project teams. Members of these teams are multidisciplinary, skilled, and experienced, and they know how to work together effectively to complete tasks quickly and accurately.
2. Improved communication: High-performance project teams have better communication skills and are better at working together than regular project teams. They are more likely to openly share ideas and feedback, resulting in improved collaboration, better problem-solving, and fewer misunderstandings.
3. Enhanced creativity: High-performance project teams are more innovative and creative than regular project teams. They are composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds and skill sets, who can bring new ideas and perspectives to the project. This can lead to unique and effective solutions to complex problems.
4. Increased member engagement: High-performance project teams have high levels of member engagement and satisfaction. When they feel they are part of a high-performing team, they are more likely to be motivated, committed, and productive.
5. Greater accountability: High-performance project teams are typically more accountable than regular project teams. Members are more likely to take ownership of their work and deliver on their commitments, which can lead to better project outcomes.

Recommendations for implementation

This section discusses multiple criteria from various literature which need to be taken into account when planning to introduce the high performing team model to a project team. Failing to meet with this set of criteria likely means that the goal of developing a high performance project team will not be met and the discussed benefits won't apply. ^[9]. ^[10]. ^[5]

Discussion

Further discussion centered mostly around the role of the project manager in high performing project teams. The project manager plays an important role after the formation of the project team in keeping high performance. The project manager has to have certain characteristics and has to initiate certain developments in order to keep the edge and succeed. ^{[6] [7]}

References

1. ↑ [Lund, A. (2011) Creating a High Performance Team.] User Experience Management, pages 163–189.
2. ↑ [Richardson, P. and Denton, D. K. (2005).] How to create a high performance team.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development] Tuckman's stages of group development. (2023, January 29).
4. ↑ [https://hr.mit.edu/learning-topics/teams/articles/stages-development] Using the Stages of Team Development
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3} [Thamhain, H. J. and Wilemon, D. L. (2013). Building high performing engineering project teams.] IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, EM-34(3):130–137.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2} [https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/characteristics-high-performance-project-teams-8525] Edward J., Kinlaw, C. S., & Kinlaw, D. C. (2000). Developing superior project teams: a study of the characteristics of high performance in project teams. Paper presented at PMI® Research Conference 2000: Project Management Research at the Turn of the Millennium, Paris, France. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2} [Ammeter, A. P. and Dukerich, J. M. (2002). Leadership, team building, and team member characteristics in high performance project teams.] EMJ - Engineering Management Journal, 14(4):3–10.
8. ↑ [Lapshun, A. L. and Fusch, G. E. (2021). Trust and Safety as Fundamental Conditions for a High[U+2010]Performance Team.] Performance Improvement, 60(3):15–19.
9. ↑ [Shi, Y. and Dai, X. (2009). Research on principle and strategies of building high- performance project team based on synergetic. In 2009] 1st International Conference on Information Science and Engineering, ICISE 2009, pages 5065–5068.
10. ↑ [https://www.ckju.net/en/blog/how-you-can-manage-project-teams-deliver-high-performance/65952] How you can manage project teams to deliver high performance by Dr. Sumbul Tahir, 16.11.2019