Based on our discussion surrounding team development, use the stage, project, and cyclical theory models of team development as a basis for your responses.
In what phase do you feel the team facilitator role is most critical? Upon completion of the reading, I believe the facilitator role is most critical in the Stage model. I imagine projects that are starting at the beginning. Teams being created for a specific goal, training or task to be completed. I view this model as a group that will likely be together from A-Z – beginning to end. As the stages show, orientation, storming and norming, the foundational part of this stage of development, the facilitator will be guiding, coaching, observing and determining how this group will pivot into the performing and adjourning stages. I have seen this quite often in 1-2 week training classes where team work will be required. And if I am recalling correctly, the facilitator was critical during these sessions.
What developmental stage do you think poses the greatest challenge for teams? I have witnessed and believe based on these readings that the project development perspective posed the greatest challenge for teams. When you are choosing groups/teams for a specific project, you may not be choosing based on skillset strength or technical abilities. You may be placing people on a team solely based on demand and capacity or prior work completion. In a ideal setting, all projects would have time and space to choose the “best” people to complete it, but in the real world, this is often not the case as many projected needed to be completed “yesterday.” Through the stages of inception, problem solving, conflict resolution and execution, there is not a lot of time to build trust and relationships to strengthen the team, especially if they do not already know each other. This poses a great threat to the team engagement, outcomes and overall success.
What can the team facilitator do to help teams overcome this challenge? If there is a team facilitator or team lead, I believe it is critical that they take some time to build relationships, even if it is only for 15 minutes. A series of questions to get to know the team, an ice breaker – conversation to humanize the team and begin to build trust. It will be critical for the facilitator to keep tabs on the team morale and progress to ensure that they will not need to step in should the team start to move backwards or not make progress. I think it also important to share that should a team already know each other, or at least the majority, some of these stages may not even occur. As McGrath shares in the book, perhaps the conflict resolution stage gets skipped as the group has strong trust and they know each other strengths and commitment. These are some of the finest “sprint” teams I have witnessed during my career.