Consultant
Q&A
H. James Harrington
Responds:
This is a hard question to answer without
knowing more about the type of team you are talking
about and their mission. Teams can be put into four
major classifications:
1. Natural Work Teams—These teams meet on a
scheduled basis to communicate and solve problems
that will improve the performance of the natural work
team’s output. They are often called department
improvement teams and include all members of the
department.
2. Quality Circle—This is a group of people
that come together to solve a specific problem that
they all will benefit from if the problem is
corrected. They last for two to six months and are
voluntary with management approval.
3. Process Improvement Teams (PIT)—The team
members are assigned by management to analyze and
improve a specific process. The teams last for 2-12
months depending upon the methodology used. Typical
methodologies are reengineering, redesign or
benchmarking.
4. Tasks Teams—The members are selected by
management to solve a specific problem, then the team
is disbanded.
What Teams Are Made Of
In natural work teams, members exist to make the
natural work team more cohesive and productive. I
find that natural work teams have problems with some
members because the team meetings start off on the
wrong foot. All natural work teams should start off
by doing an area activity analysis that defines the
natural work teams purpose, customers, process and
measurement. This promotes buy-in to the team process
and only involves people that make up the process
that is being improved. Uninterested parties need not
be invited to the solution meetings, but everyone is
involved in the communication and measurement related
to the team’s activities.
The members of quality circle teams are purely
voluntary. Anyone that does not want to participate
can drop off at any time. If someone is disruptive,
the chairman should have a private meeting with that
individual to express the team’s concern. If
the problem continues, the quality circle members can
vote the individual off the team.
With process improvement teams and task teams,
team selection is a very straightforward management
assignment for the individuals that will make up the
team and their compensation should be directly
related to the return on investment that results from
the team’s activities. In this case, you have
an obligation to let management know about the
inappropriate behavior of an individual so that the
member can be replaced.
Getting Down to Business
A team at work is not a social club. If someone does
not put his or her best effort forward, they should
be replaced because they can detract from the
team’s return on investment. All members need
to get a minimum of a four to one return on the
investment of the team’s time, the cost of
correcting the problem, and the improvement, quality
and productivity that the improved communications
bring about. Team makeup is an important part of our
business culture today, but they must be cost
justified if they are to exist. Members that detract
from the overall performance of the team need to be
replaced. It is not a personal issue; it is purely a
business issue.
H. JAMES HARRINGTON has
written seven books including the best-selling
“The Improvement Process,”
“Business Process Improvement,” and
“Total Improvement Management: The Next
Generation in Performance Management.”
Harrington is the CEO of The Performance Improvement
Network in Los Gatos, Calif. He is considered a
leading authority in process management.
Nancy
Coleman Responds
May
2001Homepage
My Kingdom
for a Team
