Chapter 3:
Team Behavior and Tools
Teach your students to work effectively in teams
Does projects take too much time?
What is team? (A team is a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold
themselves mutually accountable.
Difference between working in a team and a working group
Differences between a working group and a team
Working group
• Strong, clearly focused leader
• The groups purpose is the same
as the broader organizational
mission
• Individual work products
• Runs efficient meeting
• Measures its effectiveness
indirectly by its influence on
others
• Discusses, decides, and
deligates
Team
• Individual and mutual
accountability
• Specific team purpose that the
team itself develops
• Collective work products
• Encourages open-ended
discussions and active problemsolving meetings
• Measures performance directly
by assessing collective work
products
• Discusses, decides, and does
real work together
What it means to be an effective team member
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Take responsibility for the success of the team
Be a person who delivers on commitments
Be a contributor to discussions
Give your full attention to whoever is speaking and
demonstrate this by asking helpful questions
• Develop techniques for getting your message across to
the team (always speak in a load, clear voice)
• Learn to give and receive useful feedback
Characteristics of an Effective Team
• Team goals are as important as individual goals
• The team understands the goals and is committed to achieving
them
• Trust replaces fear and people feel comfortable taking risks
• Respect, collaboration, and open-mindedness are prevalent
• Team members communicate readily;diversity of opinions is
encouraged
• Decisions are made by consensus and have acceptance and support
of team members
• Communication skills, team skills, and problem solving ability are
three qualities recruiters are generally look for in job interviews
Assume Different Role in A
Team
• Team sponsor: the manager who has the need for the output of the
team
• Team Leader: leads meetings, manages day-to-day activities, help
team members, communicate with the sponsor, removes barriers,
helping resolve conflicts (see the following table)
• Team Facilitator: a person who assists leader,assist in datacollection activities. The key role of the facilitator is to keep the
group focused on its task
• Process observer: observes process and progress of the meetings.
One task of the process observer is to look for hidden agendas that
prevent an effective team progress.
Team Roles
Traditional Leader
Directive and
Controlling
Passive Leader
Hands off
Facilitative Leader
Creates open
environment
No questions- Just do it Too much freedom
Encourage questions
Retain all decisionmaking authorities
Lack of guidance and
direction
Provides guidance
Nontrusting
Extreme empowerment Embraces creativity
Ignores input
Uninvolved
Considers all ideas
Autocratic
A Figurehead
Maintains focus:
weighs goals vs criteria
Stages of Teams Development
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Orientation (forming)
Dissatisfaction (storming)
Resolution (norming)
Production (performing)
Termination (adjourning)
(study table 3.3 for suggested guidelines for an effective team)
People play various roles during a group activity. It should be helpful in your role as a team leader
or team member to recognize some of the behavior listed in this table. It is the task of the team
leader to try to change the hindering behavior and to encourage team members in their various
helping roles.
Helping Roles
Task Roles
Hindering Roles
Maintenance Roles
Initiating: Proposing
tasks;defining problems
Encouraging
Dominating:Asserting
authority or superiority
Information or option seeking
Harmonizing: attempting to
reconcile disagreement
Withdrawing: not talking or
contributing
Information or opinion giving
Expressing group feeling
Avoiding: changing the topic;
frequently absent
Clarifying
Gate keeping: helping to keep
communication channels open
Degrading: puttingdown
others’ ideas; joking in barbed
way
Summarizing
Compromising
Uncooperative: side
conversation: whispering and
private conversations across
table
Consensus testing
Standard setting and testing:
checking whether group is
satisfied with procedures
Problems with Teams
Characteristics of a Good Team Member:
• Respects other team members
without question
• Listens carefully to the other
team members
• Participates but does not
dominate
• Self confident but not
dogmatic
• Knowledgeable in his or her
discipline
• Communicate effectively
• Disagrees but with good
reason and in good taste
Characteristics of a disruptive team member:
• Shows lack of respect for
others
• Tends to intimidate
• Stimulate confrontation
• Is a dominant personality
type
• Talks all the time, but does
not listen
• Does not communicate
effectively
• Overly critical
Problem Solving Tools
• Problem definition (brain storming, affinity diagram,
nominal group techniques)
• Cause finding (Gathering data (Interviews, focus groups,
surveys) Analyzing
data (check sheets, histograms) Solution for
root causes (cause-and-effect diagram, why-why diagram,
interrelationship diagram))
• Solution finding and implementation (brain
storming, how-how diagram, concept selection method
(sec. 5.9) force field analysis implementation plan)
An Example of Application of Problem Solving
Strategy
Agroup of engineering honor students was concerned that more
engineering seniors were not availing themselves of the
opportunity to do a senior research project. All engineering
departments listed this as a course option, but only about 5
percent of the students chose this option. To properly define the
problem, the team brainstormed around the question “Why do
so few senior engineering students choose to do a research
project?”
Brainstorming
• Brainstorming is a group technique for
generating ideas in a non-threatening,
uninhibiting atmosphere
• The objective of brainstorming is to generate
the greatest number of alternative ideas
• Brainstorming is most effective when it is
applied to specific rather than general
problems
Four Fundamental Brainstorming Principles
• Criticism is not allowed
• Ideas brought forth should be picked up by
the other people present
• Participants should divulge all ideas
entering their minds without any constraint
• A key objective is to provide as many ideas
as possible within relatively short time
General Helpful Questions for Brainstorming
• Combination: What new ideas can arise from combining
purposes or functions?
• Substitution: What else? Who else? What other place?
What other time?
• Modification: What to add? What to subtract? Change
color, material, motion, shape?
• Elimination: Is it necessary?
• Reverse: What would happen if we turn it backward? Turn
it upside down? Inside out? Oppositely?
• Other use: Is there a new way to use it?
When the students group brainstormed, they
obtained the following results
• Problem: Why do so few engineering seniors do a
research project?
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Students are too busy.
Professors do not talk up research opportunity.
They are thinking about getting a job.
They are thinking about getting married.
They are interviewing for jobs.
They do not know how to select a topic.
I’m not interested in research. I want to work in manufacturing.
I don’t know what research the professors are interested in.
The department does not encourage students to do research.
I am not sure what research entails.
•It is hard to make contact with professors.
•I have to work part-time.
•Pay me and I’ll do research.
•I think research is boring.
•Lab space is hard to find.
•Faculty just uses undergraduate as pair of hands.
•I don’t know any students doing research.
•I haven’t seen any notices about research opportunities.
•Will working in research help me get into grad school?
•I would do it if it was required.
Brainwriting, is an alternative form of
brainstorming and is used when the topic is
emotionally charged that people will not speak
out freely in a group.
Affinity Diagram
• Time Constraints:
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Students are too busy.
They are interviewing for jobs.
I have to work part-time.
• Faculty Issues:
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Professors don’t talk up research opportunities.
The department does not encourage students to do research research.
It is hard to make contact with professors.
Faculty just use students as a pair of hands.
I would do it if it was required.
•Lack of Interest:
•They are thinking about getting a job.
•They are thinking about getting married.
•I am not interested in research. I want to work in manufacturing.
•Pay me I’ll do research.
•I think research is boring.
•I would do it if it was required.
•Lack of Information:
•They don’t know how to select a topic.
•I don’t know what research the professors are interested in.
•I’m not sure what research entails.
•I don’t know any students doing research.
•I haven’t seen any notices about research opportunities.
•Will working in research help me get into graduate school?
•Other:
•Lab space is hard to find
•Colored items are removed from active consideration.
Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
NGT is a method of group idea generation and
decision making
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Silent Brainstorming
Independent idea generation
Group activity
Independent evaluation
Procedure for NGT:
List ideas and display them so that everyone can see them
For each idea ask the question “Should this item continued to be
considered?”
(majority vote keeps the item on the list)
Decision making (each member of the team acting independently and
anonymously)
Say for 5 choices each team member rank choices as A,B,C,D, and E
and associate a value of 1-5 for each choice where 5 is best. The
ranking of all members of the team would be combined, and the choice
with the highest score would be the teams first choice.
For number of choices larger than 20 only pick the top 11 choices
(20/2 + 1)