ADM 2336 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Transactional Memory, Energizer, General Idea
Chapter 11: Team Characteristics and Processes
Team Characteristics
● Team: 2 or more people who work interdependently over some period to accomplish
common goals related to some task-oriented purpose
○ The interactions among members revolve around a deeper dependence on one
another than the interactions within groups
○ Interactions within teams occur with a specific task-related purpose in mind
○ Interaction allow teams to pool complementary knowledge and skills
What characteristics can be used to describe teams?
● Type of teams
○ Work teams: designed to relatively permanent in which members work together
to produce goods and services
○ Management teams: similar to work teams in that they are designed to be
relatively permanent, they are also distinct in a number of important ways.
■ Relatively permanent team that participates in managerial-level tasks that
affect the entire organization
■ Work teams focus on accomplishment of core operational level
production and service tasks
■ Responsible for coordinating the activities of the organizational subunits
○ Parallel teams: teams composed of members various jobs within the organization
that meet to provide recommendations about important issues
■ Only require only part-time commitment to members - ex. Quality circles
○ Project teams: teams formed to take on one-time tasks, most of which tend to
complex require input from members from different functional areas
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■ Only last as long as it takes to take finish a project (can be years)
○ Action teams: teams of limited duration that performs complex tasks in contexts
that tend to be highly visible and challenging
● Variations within team types
○ Virtual teams: members are geographically dispersed and interdependent activity
occurs through electronic communications- primarily e-mail
○ There are 2 common team development models FSNPA and punctuated
equilibrium
○ 5 stages of FSNPA
■ Forming: members orient themselves by trying to understand their
boundaries in their teams
● Get to know one another and learn boundaries of teams
■ Storming: members remain committed to ideas they bring with them to
the team, this triggers conflict
■ Norming: members realize that they need to work together to accomplish
team goals and they begin to cooperate with one another
● Feelings of solidarity develop as members work towards team
goal
■ Performing: members are comfortable working within their roles, and the
team makes progress towards their goals.
● Start developing habits
■ Adjourning: members experience anxiety and other emotions as they
disengage and ultimately separate from the team
■ These stages are not exhaustive and are always linear
○ Punctuated equilibrium: a sequence of team development during which not much
gets done until the halfway point of a project, after which teams make necessary
changes to complete the project on time
■ Deadlines or project milestones will spark change (look at the picture
below, the green represents punctuated equilibrium
■ Forming and pattern creation: “lets do this early and get some stuff done”
■ Inertia: team does the bare minimum works at a slow pace
■ Midpoint is where collaboration and syngery happens, so they debate,
reconsider and redelegate: “are we working the most productive way?
How can we change it to get the work done?”
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● Team interdependence
○ Task interdependence: degree to which team members interact with and rely on
other team members for the information, material, and resources needed to
accomplish work for the team. 4 types of task interdependence:
■ Pooled interdependence: group members complete their work
assignments independently, and then the work is piled up to represent the
groups output
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Team: 2 or more people who work interdependently over some period to accomplish common goals related to some task-oriented purpose. The interactions among members revolve around a deeper dependence on one another than the interactions within groups. Interactions within teams occur with a specific task-related purpose in mind. Interaction allow teams to pool complementary knowledge and skills. Work teams: designed to relatively permanent in which members work together to produce goods and services. Management teams: similar to work teams in that they are designed to be relatively permanent, they are also distinct in a number of important ways. Relatively permanent team that participates in managerial-level tasks that affect the entire organization. Work teams focus on accomplishment of core operational level production and service tasks. Responsible for coordinating the activities of the organizational subunits. Parallel teams: teams composed of members various jobs within the organization that meet to provide recommendations about important issues.