Managing complex and temporary organizations

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.

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 . 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 (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 (Winch, p. 428), value will be added to the project on the longer run.

Effective teamworks

Four propositions of Winch

Winch mentions four propositions to an effective teamwork (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 (Winch, p. 427).

The manageable zone in teamworking (Winch, p.427)

Clear goals and appropriate incentives

Evolutionary circle