Return to flip book view

A G U I D E T O TEAM EFFECTIVENESS ASSESSMENT

C O N T E N T S 1. OVERVIEW & BENEFITS 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF A STRONG TEAM 3. WHEN TO CONDUCT A TEAM EFFECTIVENESS ASSESSMENT 4. HOW TO ASSESS TEAMS

OVERVIEW & BENEFITS A Team Effectiveness Assessment is a tool team leaders can use to help identify their team's strengths and potential areas of weakness for improvement. Typically, topics such as commitment, communication, clarity, accountability, psychological safety, culture, and achievements, are assessed. Ideally, once the assessment is taken, a team leader will corroborate their findings with the team and then put an action plan in place to make the necessary improvements. Here are some benefits of assessing teams in the workplace:  It can help the organization accomplish its goals. Team assessments can help team members focus on their tasks, priorities and ultimate goals. By identifying team members' individual strengths, leaders can assign work suited for each employee to meet the organization's overall objectives.  It may improve professional relationships. A Team Effectiveness Assessment can reveal how well employees interact with each other and how supported each team member feels. This information can allow leaders to implement methods of improving communication among employees.  It can increase employee satisfaction. From a Team Effectiveness Assessment, leaders can learn how team members feel about their workload, the organization's values and other issues. This gives team leads the opportunity to address employees' concerns to boost morale. A Team Effectiveness Assessment helps leaders increase awareness of their leadership strengths and development opportunities and forms the foundation for their leadership development plans.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A STRONG TEAM Strong teams that deliver good results often coordinate their actions to complete project tasks and accomplish their goals. This means mixing different approaches, styles and thinking patterns within the team. On a strong team, each member should know what unique qualities they bring and how they can contribute to a specific project. Effective coordination and communication can result in better efficiency and teamwork. Here are some other characteristics that define strong teams:  They trust each other. Trust is fundamental for team interactions because when team members trust each other, they can usually be more honest when offering and receiving feedback. This can help them improve team efficiency and grow as individual employees.  They make decisions together. Many strong teams have a decentralized decision-making system, meaning that every team member contributes to discussions. This way, everyone on the team can share their views and contribute their thoughts before making a decision.  They focus on team results. In a strong team, members also assess project results as a group. This means having a group discussion to assess whether they met team goals and company objectives and how the team can improve for future projects. .

WHEN TO CONDUCT A TEAM EFFECTIVENESS ASSESSMENT If you have any reason to believe that you do not have a strong team, the following list includes some situations when a Team Effectiveness Assessment may be appropriate:  When the company replaces several members of a team in a short period of time  When remote teams and newly established teams are learning to bond  When a team is experiencing some issues and wants to improve its productivity levels  When team members are having interpersonal issues that they need to resolve  When a team is preparing for a change in the organization's policy or implementing a significant goal  When the company's management wants to assess the team's progress at regular intervals over time

HOW TO ASSESS TEAMS . CONSIDER PAST PROJECT GOALS Before assessing a team, it's important to familiarize yourself with the team's past projects and how they've managed to accomplish their goals. This should be part of the information assessed to make a proper evaluation of the team. INCLUDE INDIVIDUAL DISCUSSIONS WITH TEAM MEMBERS Assessing a team requires interacting with its members both as a group and as individuals. Individual discussions can give you each team member's personal perspective on various issues.

IDENTIFY AREAS THAT NEED TO IMPROVE After speaking with team members, gather all of their feedback. An online Team Effectiveness Assessment, can help easily extract the most common and relevant issues within the team. FIND WAYS TO RESOLVE TEAM GAPS Work on finding ways to resolve gaps that are indicated from the data gathered from the assessment. A beneficial effective Team Effectiveness Assessment summarizes team feedback with a final report. The report will explain results and guide individuals on how to use the information for the development of their team. 14

PLAN YOUR NEXT ASSESSMENT Assessing a team is usually more efficient as an ongoing process, as you can analyze how the team adapts to new conditions and evolves over time. It's best to plan your next team assessment together and set deadlines to meet by the next Team Effectiveness Assessment.