Session 8: Organizing Teams for Productivity
Steven M. Smith
When you are a member of team, what hopes do you have for productivity? My hope is for synergy — productivity that is clearly superior to what the sum of the individual members’ productivity might have been working separately.
Productive teamwork — that’s the desire. But how do you organize the team to achieve it?
A school of thought is epitomized by Michael Winner, a British film director, who says, “A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.” I have a negative reaction to this point of view. But Mr. Winner’s approach to teamwork has produced successful films.
Another school of thought is epitomized in the Agile Manifesto, “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.” This school of thought sings to me. And I have seen it produce remarkable results in the context of software development.
What are the limits to directed and self-organizing teams? That’s an example of a question we will explore. We will use simulation and group discussion to explore the role that context, teamwork and management plays in organizing successful teams.
This session will be especially valuable to managers who are involved in the creation of project teams and for individual contributors who seek more information to advice management on creating successful project teams.
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