Teamwork

Before either process or interpersonal dynamics begin to influence the effectiveness of the team, accountability expectations and group composition provide key determinants of the team's ultimate performance. Teams of greater than about five people present problems that extend beyond the difficulties of scheduling meetings. Some observers have facetiously noted that the collective intelligence of the group goes down as the group enlarges. To the extent that this happens, it stems from the complexity of conflicts involving multiple stakeholders, the dilution of accountability, and the difficulty of attaining trust and partnership as the group gets large. More consideration should be given to two-tier teams, with a core team of 3-5 people doing the central tasks of analysis and process redesign, functioning as an "executive" subunit of a larger group that provides stakeholder input and participates in less contentious activities such as brainstorming.

Teams need experts, and customer-driven process redesigns accord expert status to both service providers and customer-stakeholders. This means that "provider" experts need to be carefully selected; they cannot be the people (known to everyone) who use their technical expertise to mystify problems and disguise their own insecurities. Such people will not recognize the legitimacy of "customer expertise."

Finally, an effective team needs clear, tangible, measurable objectives. Process improvement teams are charged with streamlining administrative processes that result in fewer hand-offs, fewer steps, reduced path-length, fewer waiting/delay intervals, and fewer approvals. Objectives for cross-functional "Business Process Innovation" teams include a 50 percent or greater improvement in the number of process steps, approval steps, delay intervals, hand-offs, decision-points, and overall cycle-time. Objectives must be challenging, yet feasible, and linked clearly to the larger organization's strategic goals.

Shared accountability -- which is highly desired, in contrast to mere participation -- cannot be inspired in a team solely through conviction on the part of the "process sponsor," as is sometimes suggested. In addition, for reasons discussed above, effective teams need a disciplined approach that manages interpersonal as well as process dynamics in order to sidestep dysfunctional patterns that plague