Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Point of View: Unleashing the Power of Teams

Cause & Effect

Group dynamics, simply stated, are the forces at work that affect how individuals interact in a team environment, based on such things as their experiences, culture, personality, and social skills. There is a direct correlation between continuous improvement and operational improvement, and improvement teams are arguably the most effective continuous improvement vehicle available to an organization. Providing formal group dynamics and team-building training to an organization’s management will increase the effectiveness of any improvement program. The most important role is that of the facilitator; a highly-skilled facilitator will make or break any team. Thus, developing a core of highly-skilled facilitators is a critical task to maximize the power of teams for any organization.

Team Roles

Depending on the task at hand, teams have a wide variety of needs and members should be selected to fill the appropriate roles. Put any group of people together for any length of time and you quickly begin to see individuals assuming various roles naturally. But when structuring a team to accomplish a particular task, highly-effective teams are the ones where the roles have been matched with particular member strengths during the selection process.

Read the full article here.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2013 issue of The PCB Magazine.