Not all workgroups are teams, and teams may not be enough to cover the work needed to meet requirements. This framework identfies the scale of workgroup and scope of requirements that distinguishes one type of workgroup from another.

1. Workgroup Logic
Groups versus Teams

2. Everyone’s Favorite Workgroup
Teams are everyone’s shiny object of inclusion under the pressure of performance evaluation. There is
safety in numbers, and synergy is a LOT more interesting than compliance. Being selected to join a
team is self-affirming, and personally making a team better is more readily apparent than making a
whole company better, so credit for adding value is far more widely accessible from the company’s
overall supply. The best teams even prefer their own logo (their own sign) to the corporate logo.
But what is a team?
A team is not a faith-based group! A team is a production system made of people.
Production systems exist specifically to accomplish things in a way that accomplishment is likely, where
otherwise accomplishment is probably unlikely.
That is not guaranteeing a desired outcome. But in some cases a system is necessary because the
requirements of the demand are too strenuous for non-systemic production.
Systemic interactions are neither personal nor impersonal – they are logical. A team is a production
system. The distinguishing logic of a “team” is the internal logic of that certain kind of workgroup.

3. Groups versus Teams
Any group of people may have a culture. A culture is
also a kind of system, but it is a social system, not a
work system. This means that a team is really a
system within another system. But it is more useful
to contrast the two, in terms of what matters to us
when we see something as being one or the other.
FAILED EXPECTATIONS
EXPECTATIONS INEFFECTIVE GROUP INEFFECTIVE TEAM
Agreement No single embraced identity No single embraced function
Impacts Too small versus need Too weak versus need
Relations Political culture undermines social culture Social culture undermines production culture
Membership Belonging has low priority Quality of production gets low respect
One consideration is the fact that calling something a
“group” or a “team” represents different expectations
to be met. Only some groups are teams; many other
groups are not. The respective expectations that most
distinguish them from each other come out most clearly
when we compare them NOT being met…

4. Workgroup Types
A “workgroup” is identified as a group that is operating to attend to known work.
The nature of that attention and operation changes as we move from large-scale to small-scale
groups, and from general to more specific engagement. Progressions:
• from being a community member (least direct involvement) to a partner (most specific)
• from goals (least detailed) to tasks (most detailed)
WORKGROUP SCALES & TYPES
Community Pool Roster Team Partner
REQUIREMENTS SCOPE
Goal Objective Task
© 2020 malcolm ryder / archestra research

5. Community
Task Resource for
Objective Supportive of
Goal Attracted to
Workgroup responsibilities
A workgroup’s distinction as a type can also be represented as statements about how the group
relates to work requirements. For example, a “Community” is:
• A resource for a Task
• Supportive of an Objective
• Attracted to a Goal
To meet its requirements, a distinct type of workgroup has an internal logic most notable as its own
awareness of requirements and communications for engagement. Awareness and communication
bind workgroup members together.
The following compares numerous kinds of workgroups in those same terms. Read each column to see
the summary distinction of each type of workgroup.

6. WORKGROUP LOGIC
Scale of groups vs.
various scopes of
requirement
WORKGROUPS: SCALE, TYPE & MEMBERSHIP
Community Pool Roster Team Partner
REQMTSCOPE
Task Resource for Candidate for Staff for Role in Assignee for
Objective Supportive of Aligned with Qualified for Chosen for Critical to
Goal Attracted to
Concerned
about
Supportive of Protective of Invested in
Activism Recruiting Teaching Training Supporting
Focus
Attention
Desire
Communications for increasingly specific engagement…
Awarenesslevel
© 2020 malcolm ryder / archestra research
A “workgroup” is identified as a group that is operating to attend to
known work. Members of a group type share its distinguishing profile.
Awareness and communication bind members together. The group type
provides itself and its members for service versus requirements.

7. Archestra notebooks compile and organize decades of in-the-field and ongoing empirical findings.
All presented findings are derived exclusively from original research.
Archestra notebooks carry no prescriptive warranty.
As ongoing research, all notebooks are subject to change at any time.
©2020 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research
www.archestra.com
mryder@archestra.com
Archestra research is done from the perspective of strategy and architecture.
With all subject matter and topics, the purpose of the notes is analytic, primarily to:
* explore, expose and model why things are
included, excluded, or can happen
in given ways and/or to certain effects.
* comment on, and navigate between,
motives and potentials that predetermine
decisions about, and shapings of, the observed activity.