What Is an Effective Team?

• At the end of every day, summarize what you and your team accomplished: In The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer include a detailed daily checklist to help managers identify events throughout the day that promoted progress on the team's goals, or that contributed to setbacks . "Ironically," they explain, "such a microscope focus on what's happening every day is the best way to build a widespread, enduring climate of free-flowing communication, smooth coordination, and true consideration for people and their ideas. It's the accumulation of similar events, day by day, that creates that climate". Or if you prefer a less regimented approach, consider writing periodic snippets, five-minute summaries of what you and your team accomplished, and then emailing them to stakeholders. Snippets became famous as a productivity tool at Google.
• Establish a clear vision of what constitutes project success, and then work hard in the early stages to overcome any hurdles: This is job one for any project team leader. Focus all your teamwork skills on this essential goal.
• Build trust by establishing clear rules for communication: This is important for all teams, but especially for virtual teams spanning multiple cultures:

Virtual teams need to concentrate on creating a highly defined process where team members deliver specific results in a repeated sequence. Reliability, aka trust, is thus firmly established after two or three cycles. Because of that, face-to face meetings can be limited to once a year or so.

• Take time to reassess: In an article summarizing work on teams completed by faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Jennifer S. Mueller, a Wharton professor of management, explains how to get a team back on track:

While teams are hard to create, they are also hard to fix when they don't function properly. So how does one mend a broken team? "You go back to your basics," says Mueller. "Does the team have a clear goal? Are the right members assigned to the right task? Is the team task focused? We had a class on the 'no-no's of team building, and having vague, not clearly defined goals is a very, very clear no-no. Another no-no would be a leader who has difficulty taking the reins and structuring the process. Leadership in a group is very important. And third? The team goals cannot be arbitrary. The task has to be meaningful in order for people to feel good about doing it, to commit to the task.

• Keep your team small if possible: Social psychologists have been studying the question of the ideal team size for decades. The latest research suggests that smaller is better. So for large projects, it's sometimes helpful to divide a team into layers of sub-teams of about ten members. As Jennifer S. Mueller explains, when deciding on team size, you have to consider the type of project:

Is there an optimal team size? Mueller has concluded … that it depends on the task. "If you have a group of janitors cleaning a stadium, there is no limit to that team; 30 will clean faster than five. But," says Mueller, "if companies are dealing with coordination tasks and motivational issues, and you ask, 'What is your team size and what is optimal?' that correlates to a team of six".

• Pick the right people: In his book Mastering the Leadership Role in Project Management, Alexander Laufer describes project managers who succeeded in part because they "selected people not only on the basis of their technical, functional, or problem-solving skills, but also on the basis of their interpersonal skills". He emphasizes the importance of selecting the best possible members for your team:

With the right people, almost anything is possible. With the wrong team, failure awaits. Thus, recruiting should be taken seriously, and considerable time should be spent finding and attracting, and at times fighting for, the right people. Even greater attention may have to be paid to the selection of the right project manager.

• Use a buddy system: One way to deal with large, virtual teams is to pair individuals in a specific area (design, purchasing, marketing) with a buddy in another group, company, or team. This will encourage direct contact between peers, making it more likely that they will pick up the phone to resolve issues one-on-one outside the normal team meetings or formal communications. Often these two-person teams within a team will go on to build personal relationships, especially if they get to meet face-to-face on occasion, and even better, socialize.
• Use Skype or other video conference options when possible: Video conferences can do wonders to improve team dynamics and collaboration. After all, only a small percentage of communication is shared via words. The remainder is body language and other visual cues.
• Bring in expert help: It's common for a team to realize it is underperforming because of interpersonal problems among team members but then fail to do anything about perhaps because of a natural aversion to conflict. But this is when the pros in your company's human resources department can help. If your team is struggling, all you need to do is ask.
  
• Consider the possibility that you are the problem: If most or all of the teams you join turn out to be dysfunctional, then it's time to consider the possibility that you are the problem. Examine your own behavior honestly to see how you can become a better team member. Peer mentors and communities of practice can be an invaluable way to sharpen your teamwork skills. It's also essential to understand the role you typically play in a team.
  
• Learn how to facilitate group interactions: Just as musicians need to study and practice their instruments, leaders need to study and practice the best ways to facilitate team interactions. 
• Do your team-building exercises: People often claim to dislike team-building exercises, but they can be essential when kicking off major projects. This is especially true for teams that do not know each other, but also for teams that have worked together before or that inhabit the same building. Your team-building efforts don't need to be major events. In fact, the less planned they appear to be, the better.
• Take time to socialize: The camaraderie generated by a few hours of socializing helps build the all-important trust needed for a team to collaborate effectively. Try to make your work hours fun, too. Of course, if you are working with teams that span multiple cultures, you need to be sensitive to the fact that what's fun for one person might not be fun for another. But at the very least, most people enjoy a pleasant conversation about something other than work. Encourage team members to tell you stories about their lives. In the process, you'll learn a lot about your team members and how they filter information. Sharing stories also makes work more interesting and helps nurture relationships between team members.
• Have some fun: Something as simple as having your team choose a name for a project and creating a project logo can help create a sense of camaraderie. Consider encouraging friendly competitions between teams, such as 'first to get a prototype built' or 'most hours run on a test cell in the week'.
• Celebrate success: Too often teams are totally focused on the next task or deliverable. Take the time to celebrate a mid-project win. This is especially helpful with lengthy, highly complex projects.