Types of Teams

The development of teams and teamwork has grown dramatically in all types of
organizations for one simple reason: No one person has the ability to deliver the
kinds of products and services required in today's highly competitive marketplace.
Organizations must depend on the cooperative nature of many teams to create
successful ventures and outcomes.
Teams can be vertical (functional), horizontal (cross-functional), or self-directed (self-
managed) and can be used to create new products, complete specific projects, ensure
quality, or replace operating departments.

Problem Solving Team - a temporary team assembled to solve a specific problem

Team members are focused on specific issues to develop and implement solutions.
Most common form of team
•• Typically comprising of 5-12 members
•• Include employees from the same department
•• Members share ideas and suggestions on improving work processes

Functional teams perform specific organizational functions and include members from
several vertical levels of the hierarchy. In other words, a functional team is composed of
a manager and his or her subordinates for a particular functional area. Accounting,
personnel, and purchasing departments are examples of functional teams.

Cross-functional teams are made up of experts in various specialties (or functions)

working together on various organizational tasks. Team members come from such
departments as research and development, design, engineering, marketing, and
distribution. These teams are often empowered to make decisions without the approval of
management. For example, when Nabisco's executives concluded that the company
needed to improve its relationship with customers and better satisfy customers' needs,
they created cross-functional teams whose assignments were to find ways to do just that.

Although functional teams are usually permanent, cross-functional teams are often
temporary, lasting for as little as a few months or as long as several years, depending on
the group tasks being performed.

Self-directed work teams, or self-managed teams, operate without managers and are
responsible for complete work processes or segments that deliver products or services to
external or internal customers. Self-directed work teams (SDWTs) are designed to give
employees a feeling of “ownership” of a whole job. For example, at Tennessee Eastman,
a division of Eastman Kodak Company, teams are responsible for whole product lines—
including processing, lab work, and packaging. With shared team responsibilities for
work outcomes, team members often have broader job assignments and cross-train to
master other jobs. This cross-training permits greater team flexibility.
No matter what type of team is formed, the benefits of teamwork are many, including
synergy and increased skills, knowledge, productivity, flexibility, and commitment.
Among the other benefits are increased job satisfaction, employee empowerment, and
improved quality and organizational effectiveness.
Empowered Teams

Empowerment is very emotive word and weighed by academic debate. However, it is

most commonly used to describe teams established to manage their own task completion.
This type of team is very close to the self-managed teams described above. However,
companies have engendered the model for empowered teams with not only the ability
hold the authority to meet allocated goals, but also to shape how processes and resource
structures are designed. Critical to this type of team structure is not only delegation of
authority and resources, but the opportunity for the team and team members to learn and
evolve the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to redesign business processes.

Quality Circles

Quality Circles tend to be formed around individuals from the same work area
continuously dealing with improving the immediate work effort. These teams commonly
deal with problems that impact the work area. Quality circles are very common in
Japanese owned companies and have become very popular in Europe, United States and
in Sub-continental Asia. Nevertheless, many companies have found the implementation
of quality circles requires significant modification to meet the prevailing culture at both
societal and workplace levels.

Project Teams

Are formed from individuals who are drawn from the workplace to complete a specific
outcome to agreed milestones or goals. Teams may be formed by the organization for a
definite period to deal with special technical projects (e.g. build a bridge or investigate
the cause of a disease), or to resolve special organizational issues (e.g. occupational
health and safety concerns or establishing a business operation in new market area).
Process Improvement Teams

(E.g. quality improvement teams and best practice teams)

Process Improvement Teams differ from earlier Quality Circles in that they usually
consist of people from a cross-section of areas able to comment on the wider process.
Their core aim is to sustain improvement. The Improvement Teams commonly operate
on a project basis. That is, they form to resolve problems and disband on problem
resolution. Best Practice Teams and Quality Improvement Teams often necessitate the
same team members (or at least a core of members) 'own' a process and are always
involved in teams formed to resolve issues affecting that process. These teams have
members that can comment on all aspects of the process from initial supply to final
product or service delivery.

Team leaders provide a focal point for advice into the workplace from management. It
also provides a workplace-up communication channel to senior management. These types
of teams have become very important in companies across the globe seeking to achieve
world competitive best practices. These companies use teams that both undertake
benchmarking to determine what needs to occur for improvement and how to translate
these changes into revised team structures and work practices. Depending on levels of
vested authority (empowerment), these teams may even plan and action process and
systems redesign.

Virtual Teams

As the way we work changes radically, the evolution of teams is also undertaking a
radical leap. The virtual team is the current reality in the emergence of new team
structures. Such teams are formed where people are no longer co-located, or necessarily
operating in the same time or in a shared process (i.e. telework, collaborative teams,
virtual teams, etc). With the event of the World Wide Web and emergence more recently
of interactive satellite networks, the virtual team has taken on many shapes. Like
conventional teams, this form of team exists to serve a real purpose. The reason for their
existence can abound. Some of the core reasons for virtual teams include:
 • Global operations make it impossible for team members to meet in a physical
sense;
• Teams involve members from multiple organizations as organizations
increasingly work outside their own operational boundaries;
• Virtual can be quicker;
• Virtual meetings have evolved with the technology and now some advanced
technology and applications operates better in a cyber environment than a meeting
room;
• The virtual network is harnessing emerging technology (wireless applications,
high speed two-way satellite connection) to form new ways to organise work and
people; and
• The right people can be sourced when they are available, wherever they are
available.

As can be seen, the reasons for virtual teams abound. Most interesting is the fact that such
teams have evolved a form of organization and communication that many argue will
replace traditional organizational and operational structures. While an interesting debate,
for our purposes it is important to note virtual teams indicate a rapidly evolving new
reality for team organization and management.

As with all the different team structures, virtual teams require different leadership,
actions to ensure they achieve their purpose.