Team Building

Building cross-functional teams has unique challenges. Unlike a functional group, whose members share a common professional discipline, cross-functional team members will be coming from different functional disciplines. Often they will have dramatically different experience sets and points of view. How do you unite this diverse collection of people into a team? How do you create the synergy that makes a team outperform the sum of its individuals? How do you focus a team on collective rather than individual performance goals?

• Among our templates are the following on team-building:
  • Agenda: Software Development Managers' Offsite Meeting
  • Project Closeout Meeting Agenda
  • Guidelines - Personality Types Impact on Team Interactions
  • Leadership and the Project Lifecycle
  • Lessons Learned Survey
  • Project Manager / Team Leader Selection
  • Project Sponsor
  • Project Team Leader Description - Roles & Responsibilities
  • Project Team Organization and Assignments
  • Project Team Rewards and Recognition Guideline
  • Software Release Manager Job Description
  • Software Release Team Member Glossary
  • Task Responsibility Matrix Formats
  • Team Meeting Agenda
  • Team Roles and Responsibilities List
• Knowing more about one's personality or behavior style, the styles of others, and how different styles compliment or conflict can be useful information in building and leading a project team. The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (2000 edition) emphasizes project managers' responsibility to employ strong interpersonal skills, for instance, "Managing work relationships through motivations, delegation, supervision, team building, conflict management, and other techniques." For more on ways of describing the (probably very different!) personality types and outlooks of your team members—and resulting implications for how those team members get along and work together—here are links to information on two popular "personality type" approaches.
  
  • A popular, traditional personality assessment is the Myers-Briggs Inventory. A good overview plus other links can be found at http://www.personalitypage.com/info.html. A detailed description of each combination of the 4 parameters is provided at MBTI resource. First read the brief intro to what the MTBI terms mean, then you can see how the type elements play out by clicking on the various 4-letter combinations on the home page. This site also has links to info on various personality tests, and software for Mac and PC to take the MBTI ($15).
  • Another personality assessment, though somewhat esoteric, is the Enneagram (pronounced ANY-gram). It defines the styles of Reformer, Helper, Achiever, Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast, Challenger or Peacemaker. An introduction to the system is provided by the Enneagram Institute. The 9 Types site also provides a good overview, along with individual sections for the 9 types (including a bullet list on "how to get along with me" for each one), and links to other resources.
• Among our papers with team-building subjects:
  • Getting Relevant to Get Results
  • Learning Across Teams: The role of Communities of Practice in Team Organizations
• Among our archived Columns with a Team-building theme:
• The Challenge of Using Shared Personnel: Can a Skunk Help? on the problem of multitasking project members.
• The Project Is Life! (August 25, 2000)
• Being "Relevant" As Managers (September 11, 2000)
• These journals often have articles with a team-building theme:
  • Cutter IT Journal
  • Fast Company
  • Innovative Leader
• We've selected a number of books on team-building for you to browse.