Common Tools and Techniques Used in Team Development
Common Tools and Techniques Used in Team Development
As referred to in Stage 4 of ETETE (Exploring Then Enhancing Team Effectiveness) process.
We use a variety of concepts, tools and techniques to inform the team development process. Below are some of those with both a people and a task focus, though we recognise the line between these can be blurred.
- Semi-structured interviews
- Appreciative inquiry led interviews
- Team Climate Inventory (TCI) surveys
- 360 degree online feedback
- Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI)
- Career Drivers motivation questionnaire
- PAC Transactional Analysis communication and relationships questionnaire
- Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation (FIRO-B) questionnaire
- Belbin team type roles
- Scenario planning
- Change impact and readiness questionnaire
- Stakeholder analysis
- William Bridges’ transition methodology for change management
- Enhanced brainstorming
- Mind-mapping
- The TurnAround Model
Semi-structured interviews
We often use interviews during the early stages of the team development process to ensure that as full as possible an understanding of the real issues facing the team can be identified. We find interviews allow identification and exploration of underlying issues as well as the presenting issues.
Appreciative inquiry led interviews
Appreciative inquiry (AI) focuses on the positive aspects of a team or organisation. It can produce different outcomes from the more common problem focussed approach to data gathering. It is also useful in tackling issues within teams from a positive starting position i.e. by recognising and building on the existing strengths.
Team Climate Inventory (TCI)
The TCI is a multi-dimensional measure of work group climate which assesses the overall strengths and weaknesses of a team as a whole. It looks at issues such as:
team vision, which focuses on clarity, shared understanding and commitment to the vision
participative safety, which helps measure resistance to change, information sharing, interaction frequency and degree of openness
support for innovation, which predicts the level of innovation and creativity in teams
task orientation, which measures commitment to excellence, and looks at the style in which conflict is handled within the team
This instrument, devised and extensively tested by Prof. Michael West, has 44 questions, takes about 10 -15 minutes to complete and has been used for nearly ten years. It helps ensure that the results at a base-line point can be reliably compared to results at a future point, after any intervention. This allows a measure of the difference the intervention made in the four key areas outlined above.
360 degree online feedback instrument (can be tailored to suit your needs)
Taylor Clarke has devised its own 360 degree feedback instrument which can be easily completed online. We have used this in team development projects as part of the process of increasing self-awareness of team members as a prelude to looking at how they can work together more effectively. It is particularly flexible in that it can use your capabilities or competencies or even use constructs developed specifically for your team’s circumstances.
Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Taylor Clarke has a number of consultants who are qualified to use this well regarded and widely used instrument.
MBTI is a self-report, personality type indicator. As such it offers positive feedback to individuals on their preferences in terms of:
- what is likely to energise them,
- how they like to absorb information,
- how they make decisions and
- how they operate in general.
It highlights likely personal strengths and the likely strengths of others, who have different preferences and styles. MBTI is useful for helping people to see why misunderstandings can arise and how they can be avoided in future. It encourages openness and can help build trust. Crucially for team development projects we feel it offers two other major benefits;
Firstly, and most importantly, it helps people understand how different personality types interact in a team situation. MBTI offers insights and suggestions on how to use these very differences to ensure the team is as effective as possible. The insights it offers can help people to adapt their behaviour so that they can get the best out of others in their team.
Secondly, given the large amount of change that many organisations are now subject to it helps people to understand their own and others reactions to change. Team leaders may find this property of MBTI particularly useful to help them decide how to adapt their interpersonal style to suit colleagues they are in regular contact with, who may handle change in different ways.
We can run individual sessions with staff to help them decide their MBTI profile and its implications. The information gathered from MBTI can also be explored at the team development workshop. The individual would then in discussion with the facilitators, review findings and use them to look at their own personal development needs and help them recognise and build on their strengths.
Career Drivers questionnaire
This questionnaire is useful for helping individuals examine what their basic motivators are e.g. security, creativity, expertise, affiliation, status etc. It can be particularly helpful to the team leader when working with team members who are motivated by different things than they are.
PAC Transactional Analysis questionnaire
We use the Parent Adult Child (PAC) questionnaire and transactional analysis as a framework to explore why communication difficulties may arise between people. As well as offering a method of understanding why relationships are not working as effectively as they could, transactional analysis offers numerous ways to improve the situation.
Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation (FIRO-B)
Based on the work of Will Schutz, FIRO helps people understand themselves, their needs and their relationships. The FIRO-B questionnaire looks at the needs for inclusion, control and openness and can lead to much greater understanding of self and others, higher levels of trust and more effective working.
Belbin Team Types
We use Belbin’s work to look at areas where the team needs to be aware that they may have an over or under concentration of team members who have a preference for working in a certain role. This may lead to important roles being neglected with implications for the overall quality of the teams’ work. We also use Belbin as an introduction to help understand why there may be friction between team members. The team leader can often get useful insights into how to get the best from team members through using Belbin.
Scenario Planning
Where teams and organisations are faced with high degrees of uncertainty we find that scenario planning, (based on the work of Arie de Geus & Kies van der Heijden) can yield very useful insights. These insights can help change mindsets that then help the team members envisage radically different futures and lead to real, innovative thinking on how the team could cope if the future did change in the way imagined.
Change Impact and Readiness Questionnaire
We use a combination of questionnaires, 1:1 interviews and facilitated group discussions to identify the people and cultural impact of a particular change initiative on a team and their readiness to embrace change.
Helps to surface the impact and response to previous changes implemented to help identify limiting beliefs, cultural barriers and resistance drivers that will inform and focus the transition plans required to secure high levels of engagement, contribution and “buy-in” to change initiatives. This process helps the team to design change solutions that take into account predicted implementation issues up front to accelerate benefit release.
Stakeholder Analysis
We work with teams to help them analyse their current situation often using a power/interest grid to plot the stakeholders and their importance to the functioning of the team. We can also work with team to extend the basic stakeholder grid to look at ways to influence and manage their stakeholders more effectively.
Where teams are faced with complex or ‘messy’ problems we have a range of tools and techniques to help clarify and address the issue.
William Bridges’ Transition Methodology for Change Management
This 3 stage model is an extremely useful model to help teams cope with the psychological aspects of transition that take place during change. It helps provide a language for the team to discuss their transitions and also provides very helpful advice for leaders and team members to help the team transition effectively.
Enhanced brainstorming
We are often the prisoners of our implicit assumptions, constrained by group norms and held down by a lack of knowledge of key creative thinking techniques. These factors taken together can dramatically inhibit our ability to generate innovative solutions to old problems. Enhanced brainstorming is a structured process where a series of brainstorming ‘rounds’ that force us to make unlikely and bizarre connections helps us free our minds. This technique releases a different form of thinking that helps us look at problems from a range of entirely new angles and then generate a plethora of possibilities for solving these problems.
Mindmapping
One of the issues in most teams is discussions that go on for ages and often fail to reach conclusions. We have found that mindmapping the conversation reduces conflict, cuts out circular discussions and helps clarify the issues, leading to easier discussions, meetings and action planning.
Other tools and techniques regularly used by Taylor Clarke consultants include the following:
- Qualitative research methods
- Slydebank — Change Simulation tool
- Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) problem solving methodology
- A range of psychological assessment instruments at the British Psychological Society Level A and Level B, including Cattells 16PF5
- EFQM Assessment Methodology
- Enhanced brainstorming
- Morphological Analysis
- Many quality improvement tools such as Force-Field Analysis and Fishbone Diagrams
- Schein’s Process Consultancy Methodology
- David Clutterbuck’s Coaching and Mentoring methodology (of which we are a franchise holder)
