|
Project work focused events
The main objective of this sort of event is to get a team together
to make rapid progress with a chosen topic. This is an actual work
project - you can achieve a lot yet learn at the same time.
Multi-disciplinary groups whose members account to different function
line managers, tend to favour this approach. It can be precisely
customised and it's easier justify time and budget commitment.
It's normal to design a mixed event, where a small amount of time
is taken up with some team exercises to flag up necessary skills
and behaviours, but the majority of the event is taken up with project
work.
Case Studies: Developing a project team
We were asked to assist a product development team in a large corporation
had around 20 members, which had members from the US and the UK.
Prior incarnations of the group had been attempting to resolve a
particular development issue for several months, and the new group
inherited this problem.
Team startup
At a face-to-face event, the individual team members spent valuable
time introducing themselves to the group, with some of their background,
interests, then some of their work history, specialties and perspectives
on current issues. After this exercise, they were able to build
consensus on the team's operating principles - what should be communicated
and when, listening behaviours, and so on.
Developing communication and decision-making processes
They then focused on the work issue they'd been trying to resolve.
The team had a tendency to debate everything to death! Discussions
would continue for ages even around issues that had been agreed!
One that hadn't, however, kept bouncing back and forth, with ideas
and counter-ideas. The leadership members were encouraged to make
more solid proposals: summarising the essence of the disagreements
and pushing for consensus - the best compromise. It turned out that
the real sticking point for the team were their behaviours and approaches,
rather than completely polarised beliefs. They continued to press
for closure, and they managed to complete the decision.
The whole exercise above was completed in around 2 days.
Get in touch if you wish to discuss
these methods further!
|
