?????? Real teams are stable, bounded, and interdependent

This is WorkMatters #335 for Week 47, 2024. It was originally published as an email newsletter on Nov 22, 2024. For more, please see www.andreasholmer.com.

File this under #customervalue

This is the first in a series off articles exploring the essential building blocks of team design. Richard Hackman’s Five Factors Model (see #340) provides the backbone of the series, but ideas from thinkers like Tuckman, Edmondson, Lencioni will be integrated as well. The goal? To answer one of the most important questions for organizational success: How do you design high-performance teams?

Richard Hackman’s research identifies five key factors that drive effective teamwork. The first — real teams — stresses the importance of a well-defined group with shared accountability and a strong collective identity. A real team isn’t just a set of individuals working in parallel; it’s a cohesive unit aligned toward a common purpose. Hackman outlines several essential characteristics that define a real team:

• Boundaries: A real team has clear boundaries, meaning it’s evident who is on the team and who is not. This clarity ensures focus and prevents confusion about roles and responsibilities.
• Stability: Members of a real team stay together long enough to develop the trust and collaboration needed for high performance. Frequent changes disrupt cohesion and the ability to work effectively.
• Shared Purpose: The team is aligned around a collective goal or task. Each member understands and commits to this purpose, creating accountability and mutual dependence.
• Interdependence: Members rely on one another to achieve the team’s goals. Tasks and workflows are designed so the group must collaborate, not just work independently.

Additional considerations

Tuckman, Edmundson, and Snowden provide complimentary ideas:

• Related to the idea of stability is Bruce Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development, which suggests teams move through a series of five often consecutive steps: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. As the names suggest, it takes time for teams to reach a high-performing stage. How much time depends on the team composition, task complexity, and other factors, but it’s never zero.
• Amy Edmondson’s concept of Teaming offers a contrasting perspective. Unlike real teams, which are stable and well-defined, teaming describes how people can collaborate in fluid arrangements to address chaotic problems (e.g., emergency response) or achieve short-term goals (e.g., flash teams, see #30). However, this approach places a high demand on individual team members.
• Balancing stability and adaptability is critical. Borrowing from Edmondson’s idea of the ambidextrous organization — which can explore and exploit simultaneously — it’s safe to say that organizations need both stable and fluid teams depending on the circumstances. Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework (see #96 and #97) can help determine which approach to take.

Real-world applications

One of the most common pitfalls I’ve encountered in my work is the assumption that teaming is the best — and sometimes the only — viable approach to team building. This belief often stems from what’s known as the “machine analogy of organization,” which imagines organizations and teams as complicated machines that can be optimized with the right tools and resources.

But organizations — and teams — aren’t complicated; they’re complex systems (see #43). While teaming has proven effective in certain scenarios, it’s far from a universal solution. In fact, for most work — especially in software development — real teams that are stable, bounded, and interdependent are far more effective, just as Hackman’s research suggests.

At my new company, the focus is very much on building real, high-performing teams. This means full-time, long-term allocations that allow teams to develop the trust, accountability, and collaboration needed to excel.

To help our teams move quickly through Tuckman’s stages (Forming → Storming → Norming → Performing), we use tools and practices such as Team Charters.

A team charter is a document that is co-created by the team, often with support from a Team Coach. The charter sets clear expectations about boundaries, shared purpose, and values. The best charters also include agreed-upon guidelines for collaboration and conflict resolution — similar to relational contracts (see #66). Most importantly, the charter is a collective agreement, signed off by every team member, ensuring alignment and commitment from the start.

That’s all for this week.

Until next time; Make it matter.

/Andreas

How can we build better organizations? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. Each week, I share some of what I’ve learned in a weekly email newsletter called WorkMatters. Back issues are marinated for three months before being published to Linkedin. This article was originally published on Friday, Nov 22, 2024. Subscribe at www.andreasholmer.com to get the next issue delivered straight into your inbox.