Assess Your Teamwork Skills

Successful Strategies for Teams Team Member Handbook

• The handbook provides tools to help teams work productively and successfully, including organizing information, running effective meetings, and generating useful member contributions.

• Objectives include recognizing different team player styles, organizing a new team with clear ground rules and roles, practicing project and time planning, and applying problem-solving and analysis techniques.

• 81% of Fortune 500 companies are using team-based organizations, and at least 77% use temporary project teams.

• Companies are using teams to respond quickly to changing conditions in an environment of intense global competition and increasing complexity.

• Traditional organizations are becoming networked organizations that require collaboration, sharing responsibility, and optimizing the value and use of all members' diverse skills and experiences.

• Teamwork is an individual skill, and becoming skilled at doing more with others may be the single most important thing you can do to increase your value.

• All teams go through stages of development: forming, storming, norming, and performing.

• Team members should talk about their current stage and use organizational tools to establish ground rules, define team roles and responsibilities, and plan projects and time.

• Every team member has a natural team-player style: contributor, collaborator, communicator, or challenger.

• The Team-Player Questionnaire helps identify team-player styles and strengths to develop a plan to increase effectiveness.

• The handbook includes a problem-solving framework and analysis tools to help teams progress through stages and achieve their objective.

• Working in student teams provides the opportunity to acquire and practice collaborative skills essential for future success.Teaming Handbook Summary

• The Teaming Handbook is a guide to understanding and improving teamwork skills.

• The handbook includes a questionnaire that helps individuals identify their primary team-player style.

• The four team-player styles are Contributor, Collaborator, Communicator, and Challenger.

• Each style has specific behaviors and skills that contribute to effective teamwork.

• Effective communication and collaborative decision-making are essential interpersonal skills for successful teamwork.

• Teams with members who have similar styles may have trouble reaching their goals, and all four styles are needed for a great team.

• Building consensus is important for decision-making because it ensures that everyone buys into the solution.

• Nominal Decision Making is a way of sorting out everyone's opinions to check for consensus.

• Inclusion gives dissenters a voice, which is always important in decision-making.

• The handbook emphasizes the importance of recognizing and talking about weaknesses to improve team performance.

• Experienced team members develop interpersonal skills and meeting management skills.

• The goal is to have a good mix of team player styles on a team, and everyone has valuable skills to bring to the table.Effective Meeting Management Skills

• Meeting management skills are critical for team success

• Organizational and analysis tools help teams hold productive meetings

• Effective meetings are important for achieving team goals and motivating team members

• Establishing roles and responsibilities helps define how team members can contribute

• Critical roles include facilitator, recorder, and participant

• Permanent or rotating roles depend on team lifespan and workload sharing preferences

• Ground rules establish agreements on acceptable behavior and reduce conflicts

• Specific ground rules prevent confusion and foster understanding

• Meeting agendas should be distributed well in advance and contain logistics, purpose, products, preparation, and process elements

• Setting the agenda for the next meeting at the current meeting ensures continuity and common understanding

• Meeting summaries help keep everyone informed, document decisions and action items, and reduce confusion

• Project planning and gap analysis help teams visualize outcomes, anticipate potential problems, and measure progress toward future states.Teaming Handbook: Tools for Problem-Solving

• The Teaming Handbook provides tools for teams to complete necessary actions and establish timelines for completion.

• The Gap Analysis tool helps teams identify necessary actions to bridge the gap between the current state and the future state.

• The Milestone Chart tool designates responsibility for each action step and tracks progress towards the project outcome.

• The Seven Steps of Problem-Solving framework helps teams start and finish problem-solving projects.

• Analysis tools, including Brainstorming, Affinity Diagramming, and the Nominal Group Technique, help teams generate, organize, and prioritize ideas and solutions.

• Flowcharting is a tool for visually documenting the steps, activities, and tasks in a process to identify redundancies and inefficiencies.

• The Pareto Chart tool visually displays the relative importance of categories and helps teams summarize actual data.

• Guidelines for effective Brainstorming include clearly identifying the topic, setting a time period, and establishing ground rules.

• The Nominal Group Technique prioritizes problems by ranking each item and adding the rankings across team members.

• A cross-functional flowchart is a tool for showing how information travels back and forth across department lines.

• The Teaming Handbook emphasizes the importance of visualizing the final product, establishing a common vision among team members, and reviewing progress at each meeting.

• The handbook includes downloadable templates for Gap Analysis, Milestone Chart, Affinity Diagram, and other tools.

Successful Strategies for Teams Team Member Handbook

• The handbook provides tools to help teams work productively and successfully, including organizing information, running effective meetings, and generating useful member contributions.

• Objectives include recognizing different team player styles, organizing a new team with clear ground rules and roles, practicing project and time planning, and applying problem-solving and analysis techniques.

• 81% of Fortune 500 companies are using team-based organizations, and at least 77% use temporary project teams.

• Companies are using teams to respond quickly to changing conditions in an environment of intense global competition and increasing complexity.

• Traditional organizations are becoming networked organizations that require collaboration, sharing responsibility, and optimizing the value and use of all members' diverse skills and experiences.

• Teamwork is an individual skill, and becoming skilled at doing more with others may be the single most important thing you can do to increase your value.

• All teams go through stages of development: forming, storming, norming, and performing.

• Team members should talk about their current stage and use organizational tools to establish ground rules, define team roles and responsibilities, and plan projects and time.

• Every team member has a natural team-player style: contributor, collaborator, communicator, or challenger.

• The Team-Player Questionnaire helps identify team-player styles and strengths to develop a plan to increase effectiveness.

• The handbook includes a problem-solving framework and analysis tools to help teams progress through stages and achieve their objective.

• Working in student teams provides the opportunity to acquire and practice collaborative skills essential for future success.Teaming Handbook Summary

• The Teaming Handbook is a guide to understanding and improving teamwork skills.

• The handbook includes a questionnaire that helps individuals identify their primary team-player style.

• The four team-player styles are Contributor, Collaborator, Communicator, and Challenger.

• Each style has specific behaviors and skills that contribute to effective teamwork.

• Effective communication and collaborative decision-making are essential interpersonal skills for successful teamwork.

• Teams with members who have similar styles may have trouble reaching their goals, and all four styles are needed for a great team.

• Building consensus is important for decision-making because it ensures that everyone buys into the solution.

• Nominal Decision Making is a way of sorting out everyone's opinions to check for consensus.

• Inclusion gives dissenters a voice, which is always important in decision-making.

• The handbook emphasizes the importance of recognizing and talking about weaknesses to improve team performance.

• Experienced team members develop interpersonal skills and meeting management skills.

• The goal is to have a good mix of team player styles on a team, and everyone has valuable skills to bring to the table.Effective Meeting Management Skills

• Meeting management skills are critical for team success

• Organizational and analysis tools help teams hold productive meetings

• Effective meetings are important for achieving team goals and motivating team members

• Establishing roles and responsibilities helps define how team members can contribute

• Critical roles include facilitator, recorder, and participant

• Permanent or rotating roles depend on team lifespan and workload sharing preferences

• Ground rules establish agreements on acceptable behavior and reduce conflicts

• Specific ground rules prevent confusion and foster understanding

• Meeting agendas should be distributed well in advance and contain logistics, purpose, products, preparation, and process elements

• Setting the agenda for the next meeting at the current meeting ensures continuity and common understanding

• Meeting summaries help keep everyone informed, document decisions and action items, and reduce confusion

• Project planning and gap analysis help teams visualize outcomes, anticipate potential problems, and measure progress toward future states.Teaming Handbook: Tools for Problem-Solving

• The Teaming Handbook provides tools for teams to complete necessary actions and establish timelines for completion.

• The Gap Analysis tool helps teams identify necessary actions to bridge the gap between the current state and the future state.

• The Milestone Chart tool designates responsibility for each action step and tracks progress towards the project outcome.

• The Seven Steps of Problem-Solving framework helps teams start and finish problem-solving projects.

• Analysis tools, including Brainstorming, Affinity Diagramming, and the Nominal Group Technique, help teams generate, organize, and prioritize ideas and solutions.

• Flowcharting is a tool for visually documenting the steps, activities, and tasks in a process to identify redundancies and inefficiencies.

• The Pareto Chart tool visually displays the relative importance of categories and helps teams summarize actual data.

• Guidelines for effective Brainstorming include clearly identifying the topic, setting a time period, and establishing ground rules.

• The Nominal Group Technique prioritizes problems by ranking each item and adding the rankings across team members.

• A cross-functional flowchart is a tool for showing how information travels back and forth across department lines.

• The Teaming Handbook emphasizes the importance of visualizing the final product, establishing a common vision among team members, and reviewing progress at each meeting.

• The handbook includes downloadable templates for Gap Analysis, Milestone Chart, Affinity Diagram, and other tools.