The document discusses developing high performance teams. It provides an overview of team building components including purpose, structure, motivation, dynamics, communication and respect among members. Effective team leadership is highlighted as understanding organizational context, goals, stakeholders and communicating clearly. High performing teams are balanced and implement processes to maximize efficiency through cooperation and buy-in from team members. Ten reasons for using teams are presented, including reducing stress, creating consensus, leveraging diversity, continuous improvement, and producing better solutions that get implemented because everyone is invested in the team's success.

1. 2011 Program Management
Challenge
Developing High
Performance Teams
Presenters:
Bobby Watkins NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center
Izella M. Dornell U.S. Department of Commerce
1

2. Agenda
Overview
Program/Project Problem Resolution
Anatomy of a High Performance Team
– The Importance of Teams
– Team Building Components
– Team Leadership
– Team Membership
– Obtaining Balance
10 Reasons to Use Teams 2

3. High Performance Teams
Overview
• Developing strong teams and relationships
within the team are major components that
enable mission success
• Optimizing team performance should be a
high priority for an organization’s
leadership
• A team’s functionality can mean the
difference between having the appropriate
resources made available or landing on a
“high risk” cancellation list 3

4. Six Step Problem Solving Process
Act Plan
1. Identify/
Select
Problem
6. Evaluate 2. Analyze
the Solution the Problem
5. Implement 3. Generate
the Solution Potential
Solutions
4. Select &
Plan Solution
Check Do 4

5. Blue Print Tools
• Team Building
– Fostering collaboration through “team
building” is the key component for
effective execution of the organization’s
mission, programs and projects
– Must realize that people are the
foundation for building and nurturing
high performing teams
5

6. Team Building Components
• Purpose
• Structure
• Motivation
• Dynamics
• Communication
• Respect for members
• Feedback
• Closure
6

7. High Performance Teams
Leadership
• Effective leaders first gain an
understanding of the context of their
organization
• Mission
• Stakeholders
• Constraints
• Political environment
• Culture
7

8. High Performance Teams
Leadership
• Characteristics
– Use different leadership styles
– Define and focus on goals and objectives
– Articulate a strategy for moving forward
– Engage employees/team members
– Put customers first
– Involve key stakeholders
– Seize the moment
– Communicate, communicate and communicate
– Create alignment
– Expect the unexpected
– Stick with it
8

10. Who Touches the Process?
• Process Owner
• Professional staff who do the work
• Technical staff who do the work
• IT representative
• HR representative
• Finance representative
• Customers & other stakeholders
• Suppliers
• Benchmarking partner
• Somebody with facilitation skills
• Somebody who has done a process improvement
10

11. For Team
Effectiveness…….

12. A Team Facilitator Who:
– Consults (Knows when to shut up)
– Focuses the Team
– Encourages Initiative
– Shares Tasks & Leadership
– Trains & Develops
– Cultivates Honesty
– Cultivates Respect
– Coordinates Activities
– Motivates the Team
– Measures, Measures, Measures
– Cultivates Creativity
– Runs Interference
12

13. Team Members Who:
• Care
• Take Responsibility
• Freely Offer Ideas & Talents
• Encourage the Ideas & Talents of Others
• Focus
• Think (till it hurts)
• Are Positive
• Appreciate & Utilize Diversity
• Helps the Leader
13

14. Meeting Ground Rules
• 1. Respect Each Other
• 2. Share Responsibility
• 3. Criticize Ideas Not People
• 4. Keep An Open Mind
• 5. Question & Participate
• 6. Attend All Meetings
• 7. Listen Constructively & Carefully
• 8. Be On Time
• 9. Make All Points At Meetings
– (Not In Parking Lot)
• 10. Be Candid & Diplomatic 14

15. High Performance Teams
Balanced Results
Processes implemented to
maximize program and project
efficiency with the “active
cooperation” and “buy-in” from the
TEAM
15

16. Obtaining Team Balance
• What do you need to be able to do?
– Create a Blue Print
– Know the Environment
– Determine the Leadership
– Establish organizational goals/mission focus
– Build a functional team
• Build relationships
• Establish alliances and coalitions
• Beware of organizational “land mines” i.e. politics/culture
16

17. Ten Reasons to Use Teams
(Besides getting the boss
off the hook on tough
decisions)

18. 1. Reduces Stress and Politics
• Boss does not have to be all knowing
• Vastly increases the data used for
decision making
• Process less personal (in good ways)
• Personal status and “histories” not part of
the process
• More objective
18

19. 2. Reduces Bureaucracy
• Communication among units immediate
• Assignments made and completed outside
of “chain of command”
• No need for sequential “clearance” for
permission to take next steps
19

20. 3. Creates Fun and Energy
• Group commitment to each other pushes
things forward
• People bond when on a well defined
mission
• Brainstorming, creativity and innovation
are invigorating
• Learning is invigorating
• A good facilitator will make sure there is
fun
20

21. 4. Consensus Can Happen
• Solutions moves forward without sabotage
– Majority rule causes sabotage
– Unilateral decisions cause insurrection
– Consensus causes the group to “dig deeper”
21

22. 5. Makes Your Diversity A
Resource
• Produces tangible experience of the
advantage of differences
• Infects the organizations culture
22

23. 6. Creates Continuously Improving
Systems
• Systematic approaches used by teams
produced systems
– Systems have monitoring devises
– Systems have means of calibrating to
changing customer requirements
– Systems have input, in-process and output
measures
– Systems are deployed to standards
– Systems can be compared and benchmarked
23

24. 7. Not Constrained by the
Organization Chart
• Include Suppliers
• Include Partners
• Include Customers
• Include the Customer you want
24

25. 8. Learning Happens
• Transfer of skills, knowledge and point of
view
• Innovation results when concepts from
unrelated fields meet
• There are development opportunities even
in a “flat” organization
• Hidden talents emerge
• Personal growth inevitable
25

26. 9. Puts the “We” in Your
Organization
• Builds relationships across silos
• Communication channels outlive project
• Credit and pride goes far and wide
• Supports empowerment
• Encourages matrix management
26

27. 10. Produces Better Solutions That
Actually Get Implemented
• All the right egos invested
• Every “gift” can be in the room
• All bases have been touched
• Everyone pulling for success
• Everyone adapting for success
• Lots of folks get credit for success
• No put downs
27

29. Discussion