Session 2: Team Formation

Objectives

1. Identify the skills that you will need in your problem-solving team.
2. Determine the roles that the members of your team will perform.
3. Establish your team process with the creation of team rules.

 

Introduction

Problem solving Is usually much more effective if it is undertaken by a team. There are some simple problems that can be adequately solved by one person but most problems that have a significant organisational impact will be better approached by a team of people with a diversity of skills, knowledge and capabilities.

In this session we will consider the skills that all problem-solving teams need and the skills that are specific to the problem that you are working on.

Later in the course we will be focusing on the processes and techniques that you can use to enable the team to perform as effectively possible.

You will conduct an exercise to understand the capabilities of your team.

 

Team Selection and Capabilities

You may have the opportunity to pick the team that will work on a problem. If so, you should first list the skills and capabilities that the team would ideally have and seek to match that in your selection as much as possible. Often the team that will work on a problem will be determined for you. Either it will be the work team that you are part of in your daily work (or part of it) or it will be assigned by someone else.

Most teams will not have a perfect alignment with the ideal set of capabilities for solving the problem that you are working on. This may mean that you need to access skills from outside the problem solving team, perhaps through getting advice from appropriate experts or support from services inside or outside the organisation (for example maintenance and engineering services), or by focusing more consciously on aspects that the team may be less comfortable with (such as conflict management).

 

Team Problem Solving Skills

Problem solving teams need a range of skills and capabilities to be effective. Some of these skills will be specific to your problem while others are valuable in most problem-solving teams. Some of these are:

Active Listening: making better effort to understand what someone else is saying. Important to motivate team members and take full advantage of their skills and knowledge.

Analysis: Examining and understanding the data about a problem. Important in finding the problem causes and developing a solution.

Research: Understanding which data is important and being able to gather it. Problem solving should be scientific – based on good evidence.

Creativity: Using your imagination to devise solutions to problems. Good problem solving requires creativity to find the best solutions.

Communication: Communications is important between members of the problem-solving team to enable ideas to be shared and solutions to be formed and implemented. It is also important with people outside the problem-solving team, to gather their ideas and better understand the possible success and impact of solutions.

Dependability: Problem solving team members need to be able to rely on and trust each other, to ensure that work will be done when needed and that support will be provided when team members face challenges.

Decision making: Teams need to be able to make good quality decisions, which is often difficult. They need to carefully consider the factors that will influence the decision and effectively involve team members so that they are comfortable that team decisions are being made appropriately.

Team Building: Helping the team become more closely bonded so that its members can work more effectively together.

Emotional Intelligence: Awareness and the ability to control your own emotions and apply this capability in relationships with others. Emotional intelligence is important in effective team working and leadership.

Team Working: Being a valuable contributor to the team and helping the team as a whole to work as effectively as possible.

Risk Management: Identification and management of risks to the work of the team and the solution implementation and operation.

In addition to these skills, there may be skills that be useful for your team that are dependent on the problem being solved. Often these will be technical in nature (such as an engineer if modifications to a machine are being considered).

 

Team Roles

Allocating roles to problem solving team members ensures that activities and attention is focused on aspects that are important to team success. You can create roles that you feel are important for your team – roles that most teams should include are:

Champion: May be outside the team with authority to provide necessary resources to the team and approve implementation of the solution. May attend team meetings.

Leader: Coordinates the work of the team, its decision making and focus on objectives. Motivates team members.

Team Members: Carry out team activity, contribute to team success.

Time Manager: Help the team allocate appropriate time for its activities, inside and outside of meetings.

Facilitator: Helps the team work better together in pursuit of its objectives. Enables effective application of processes the team is using for problem solving.

Recorder: Takes meeting notes and maintains the data and records of the team.

 

Team Process

Effective problem-solving teams take time to consider how they will work together, the skills that they have, the roles that they will perform and the rules they will work by.

Team rules can cover anything you think is important for the team to perform. Here are some sample rules that you may consider:

• Treat each other with respect
• Avoid hidden agendas
• Create trust
• Be open minded
• We will deliver on our commitments
• Attend meetings on time
• Take notes at all meetings and circulate them within 4 hours of the meeting ending
• All meetings will have an agenda
• Everyone will have an opportunity to express their views
• Information will be openly shared

 

Improving Your Problem-Solving Skills

• If you want to improve your own ability to problem solve, you can:
• Improve your technical knowledge of the areas that you may be focusing on in your problem solving.
• Look for opportunities to get involved in problem solving activities.
• Think about how you would solve problems that you think need to be solved in your workplace today.
• Think about how you would solve problems that you encounter in other areas of your life.

 

Summary

In this lesson we have helped you form and prepare your team for effective problem solving. The skills that your team will need have been described, the roles that the members of the team will occupy and the process that your team will use for working together have been introduced.

 

Canadian Canoe Company Case Study Exercise

1. Create a skills matrix based on the skills above (an example is below).
2. As a team, allocate roles that the members of your group will play in the course activities.
3. As a team, create a list of the rules that you will work by. List these on a flipchart page.

 

Skills:	Judith	Ammar	Tom	Lingling	Natalie
Active Listening	Y		Y	Y
Analysis		Y	Y
Research				Y	Y
Creativity		Y		Y
Communication	Y	Y	Y
Dependability	Y			Y	Y
Decision Making					Y
Team Building		Y
Emotional Intelligence		Y		Y
Team Working	Y	Y			Y
Risk Management			Y
Roles:
Champion
Leader					Y
Team Members	Y	Y	Y	Y
Time Manager	Y
Facilitator		Y
Recorder			Y