Measurements of Team Effectiveness

The question we were asked to address was how would you measure the success or effectiveness of a team, both over the short-term and long-term? And the context was in terms of our reading regarding team training.

I believe that there are several measurement factors that go into determining the effectiveness of a team. As the question states, there are short-term and long-term aspects, but there are factors that are more relevant and prescient that should be addressed, many of which are subjective in nature. 

I was recently a part of a workgroup/team that came together for major product development and launch and there were several success factors that we measured. Among these were the objective ones such as: (a) the time to produce the product, (b) the quality of the product (which is a bit of subjective measurement), (c) whether or not the team can continue to produce in the future. 

However there are several that are not measured by these three aspects, several that are far more subjective in nature, such as: (a) whether or not the team functioned efficiently, (b) did the team react to the work effectively, harmoniously, and easily, and (c) did the team evolve from an immature state to a more mature state and are they continuing to evolve. 

I think it's these last three questions that are far more relevant to measuring the health of a workgroup and the future capabilities of a workgroup, and measuring these would be far more difficult to measure, and therefore more difficult to influence positive change in. 

One of the best measurement tools to help achieve this would be debriefing and after-action reviews. Although debriefings may not seem like a typical measurement tool, it does work as a collector of valid information if performed well, and if they are executed in a series over time then a measure of improvement (or decline) can be taken. 

Gregory et al. (2013) state in describing sustaining conditions to foster teamwork that "by implementing systematic debriefing meetings, employees will be reminded of teamwork competencies and desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were once learned during the team training program" (p. 475). Later in our reading, Tannenbaum et al. (2013) state when discussing debriefings and how to determine if they produce desired improvements and changes, "some of the improvements are cognitive in nature, while other are behavioral" (p. 499). It's these two types of subjective aspects of teamwork can be measured via debriefings then it's possible to track and make improvements over time. 

References

Tannenbaum, S., Beard, R., & Cerasoli, C. (2013). Conducting team debriefings that work: Lessons from research and practice. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.

Gregory, M., Feitosa, J. Driskell, T., & Salas, S., (2013). Designing, delivering, and evaluating team training in organizations: Principles that work. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.