Suggested Length: Three Days

Building Customer-focused Teams

1 Organizational considerations

• The self-adapting team structure as a strategy for managing change in organizations
• What experience and research have taught us about adaptive teams – what works and what doesn’t
• How adaptive team structures affect performance and productivity
• Securing commitment and support for the team approach – overcoming resistance and barriers
• The link between the adaptive team structure, information flow, and organizational learning
• The critical job of coordinating a network of loosely-coupled teams for improved results

2 Designing a more flexible team architecture

• Dynamic and complex change: the driving force for a new team architecture
• Challenges faced when designing and implementing an adaptive job/task structure and flow of work
• Shifting problem-solving authority to the team level
• Decomposing jobs: continually adapting work structures to meet changes in the environment
• How teams can adapt quickly to rapid change, unpredictable events, and emerging opportunities
• Improving inter-team connections and work processes
• Swarming: a team strategy for keeping contact with its environment and capitalizing on opportunities

3 Creating a culture to support adaptive teams

• Transforming the organization’s culture about accepting change and the need for new structures
• Managing the balance of consequences – creating a climate that encourages risk-taking, experimentation and learning from mistakes
• How to develop system policies and procedures that support adaptive teams
• Building greater trust between levels and functions
• Adaptability as an organizational norm and way of life

4 Managing team workflow processes and performance

• The adaptive team’s formula for success – doing the simple and fundamental things flawlessly
• Identifying key team and workflow processes – how it does what it does
• Establishing standards, criteria and indicators to assess a team’s progress and effectiveness
• Performance information – ensuring the continuous flow of an adaptive team’s lifeblood
• How to recognize clues to team trouble, dysfunction, and blockages
• Upgrading your team’s competencies to survive in a changing work environment
• Increasing the team’s capacity to innovate and improve quality

5 Managing social processes – group roles and dynamics

• Making a smooth transition to the roles and responsibilities found in adaptive teams
• Clarifying the roles, norms and values that impact your team’s performance
• Negotiating new team roles as things change in the work environment
• Building a foundation of trust and mutual support among team members
• Team dynamics and processes – knowing how to keep your team moving towards its intended goals
• Helping people become a cohesive part of your team
• How power is shared successfully in adaptive teams

6 Introduction to collaborative problem solving

• Determining when team involvement and collaboration can improve problem-solving
• Guidelines and techniques for effective team problem-solving – what works and what doesn’t
• Eliminating barriers to team problem solving
• Skills for building team consensus and commitment

7 Interpersonal relations in teams

• How to build collaborative relations within your team
• Interpersonal skills for working with diverse team members and customers
• Communicating effectively in rapid-change situations
• Overcoming barriers to team communications
• Working constructively when there are differences and disagreements

8 Facilitating team processes

• Facilitation skills that lead a team towards consensus and commitment towards a common goal
• How to increase involvement, self-initiative, and trust among team members
• Facilitation techniques for overcoming team blockages and difficult situations
• Helping the group find opportunities for team re-design and process innovation

9 Team meetings

• Meetings that are enjoyable, involving, motivating and productive – Yes, they’re possible!
• Do’s and Don’ts for conducting team meetings
• Why meetings go astray and what to do about it
• Planning tips from pre-meeting to follow-up