Building%20a%20High%20Performance%20Team

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Building a High Performance Team

• Instructor Manfred Huber
• Partially adapted from Mike ODell

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What SD Students Say (about team/projects)

• Nobody wants to work with someone who will not
  pull their load.
• Most want to work with someone who thinks and
  works like they do.
• Everyone wants to work on a "meaningful", or
  "real world" product.
• Most want their project to be a success.
• Most would like to work on a project that is
  directly relevant to their future/current job.

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What SD Student Say (about team/projects)

• Everyone wants all of their teammates to be
  honest, trustworthy, and hard-working.
• Only a few of you want to be a team leader.
• Many of you don't understand why you need to work
  on a team - i.e., with other people.
• Not everyone is a technical expert.
• Many of you are nervous about your
  presentation/oral communication skills.
• Each of you has a unique set of skills that can
  contribute to your teams/projects success.

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Team Productivity

• Studies have shown that productivity of teams can
  vary significantly1
• As much as 5 to 1, in studies where backgrounds
  and experience varied between teams
• Typically 2.5 to 1 between teams with similar
  backgrounds and experience

1 Boehm, 1981 DeMarco Lister, 1985 Weinberg
Schulman, 1974 Boehm, et. al., 1984 Valett
McGarry, 1989
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Characteristics of High-Performance Teams

• Case Study Amish Barn Raising (pp. 273-274)
• The movie Witness illustrates an Amish barn
  raising where an Amish community builds a barn
  for a member in a single day.
• Team structure
• Team dynamics
• Other team characteristics
• Why did it work?
• What are potential problems?

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Characteristics of High-Performance Teams

• Case Study 12.1 (pp. 274-275)
• In the Giga-Quote 2.0 project 5 team members work
  together under an informal team lead with
  decisions made by consensus.
• Team structure, dynamics characteristics
• Why didnt it work?

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Characteristics of High-Performance Teams

• Case Study 12.2 (pp. 277-278)
• Team of actuarial consultants fresh out of
  college working for a startup company.
• Team structure, dynamics characteristics
• Why did it work?

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a shared, elevating vision or goal
• Buy-in every single member of the team
• Streamlines decision making on smaller issues
• Provides focus and avoids wasted time
• Builds trust and cooperation
• Small issues stay small focus is on BIG GOAL
• The vision MUST be important to the organization,
  and create challenging work

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a sense of shared identity
• A sense that you belong together
• A way to distinguish your team from others
• Shared sense of humor
• Satisfaction in teammates accomplishments
• WE, instead of I in your team language
• Competitive FIRE!
• Thoughts/ideas on how you go about building this
  shared identity for YOUR team?

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a results-driven structure
• Organized with max. development speed and
  efficiency in mind
• Clear, and clearly understood, roles for everyone
• Accountability for each individual
• Effective communication system rules (up-down,
  down-up, across)
• Performance monitoring/measurement
• Decisions are based on FACT, not opinions or
  mandate

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have competent team members
• Teams are a blend of individuals, each with
  different key competencies and skills
• Key Competencies
• Strong technical skills in relevant areas
• Strong desire to contribute
• Strong collaborative skills
• Mix of roles every team must have
• Organization and Leadership
• Communication capabilities
• Specific technical capabilities

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a common commitment to team
• Involves personal sacrifices for the team (that
  you may not make for the larger organization)
• Calls for a commitment of your personal time and
  energy everyone!
• Each member must know and buy-in to exactly what
  you and your team are committing to
• VISION CHALLENGE TEAM IDENTITY

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They trust each other
• Four components of trust
• Honesty
• Openness
• Consistency
• Respect
• Breach just one trust is gone!
• Trust is learned, not mandated

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have interdependence among members
• Understand and rely on each other strengths
• Everybody gets to contribute in the way(s) that
  they are best qualified to do so
• Everybody gets to participate in critical
  decisions that affect the team
• Everybody looks for ways to make other members
  successful
• Result everyone gravitates to the role in which
  they are most productive!

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They communicate effectively
• Establish preferred ways to communicate
• Stay in touch with each other
• Establish their own team language based on
  mutual understanding (Recall Case Study 12.2)
• Express true feelings, without any fear of
  retribution or embarrassment
• Even (or, maybe, especially) the bad news

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a sense of autonomy
• Feel like you can do whatever you need to do to
  make the project/product successful
• Based on trust within the organization (a.k.a.
  management)
• No micro-managing
• No second-guessing
• No overriding tough decisions
• Full support in those impossible situations

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They have a sense of empowerment
• The organization gives you the power to do what
  is right for your team
• You can make decisions, within the context of
  your project, and not have them over-turned
• You can make a few mistakes, and not have them
  held against you

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They are right-sized
• Small enough to communicate effectively
• Small enough to work efficiently
• Small enough to bond as a team
• Large enough to form a group identity
• Large enough to get the job done
• Large enough to include the right key
  competencies and skills
• Larger projects can usually be broken into
  smaller, more efficient, teams

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What Makes a High-Performance Team?

• They enjoy what they are doing
• Not every enjoyable team is a high-performance
  team but
• Every high-performance team is enjoyable!
• Shared sense of humor, secret hand-shakes, team
  vocabulary, secret jokes done in good taste,
  these things can be FUN.

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An Effective Team

• Is not an individual, or two
• No geniuses
• No heroes
• Everyone contributes equally
• Need not be experts on anything
• Must have a leader
• Must have a balance of key competencies
• Must have a balance of relevant skills
• Must have identity/cohesiveness

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Individual Capabilities

• A good team is made up of individuals who have
  the following basic skill sets
• Organizational
• Communication
• Technical

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Organizational Capabilities (e.g.)

• Planning
• Personnel management
• Scheduling
• Tracking
• Reporting
• Ability to stay on track
• Ability to keep others on track

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Communication Capabilities (e.g.)

• Written reports/presentations
• Clear and correct English
• Proper format
• Timely
• Good with presentation/visual aids
• Verbal
• Oral reviews/team meetings
• Sales presentations
• Training

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Communication Capabilities (e.g.)

• Critical Analysis
• Reviewing materials, plans
• Reviewing/evaluating customer and sponsor input
• Clearly conceptualizing difficult ideas/issues
• Understanding and integrating other
  approaches/opinions
• Considering alternative design approaches
• Objective, open-minded, clear-thinker

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Technical Capabilities (e.g.)

• Requirements analysis
• Architectural design
• Detail design
• Test design
• Coding to meet specifications
• Test supervision and execution

• Product packaging
• Hardware interface
• Source control
• Change control
• Knowledge of specific languages
• Knowledge of specific technologies

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Team Capabilities

• are the union of individual capabilities
• BUT, a team must have (develop) a sufficient
  level of ALL required capabilities.
• NB
• A high-performance team maximizes its
  capabilities AS A TEAM.
• A high-performance team matches individual skills
  with the job(s) to be done.

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Projects and Team Structure

• Kinds of teams
• Problem-resolution teams
• Team focused on solving complex, poorly defined
  problems. E.g. Software team to diagnose new
  showstopper defects.
• Creativity teams
• Team tasked with exploring possibilities and
  finding new ways to address issues. E.g.
  Software team breaking new ground in terms of
  applications.
• Tactical-execution teams
• Team focused on carrying out a well-defined plan.
  E.g. Software team working on sell-defined
  product upgrade.

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Kinds of Teams

• Problem-resolution team
• Team focused on solving complex, poorly defined
  problems. E.g. Software team to diagnose new
  showstopper defects.
• What features should this team have ?
• What team member characteristics are important ?
• What structures would be useful

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Kinds of Teams

• Creativity team
• Team tasked with exploring possibilities and
  finding new ways to address issues. E.g.
  Software team breaking new ground in terms of
  applications.
• What features should this team have ?
• What team member characteristics are important ?
• What structures would be useful

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Kinds of Teams

• Tactical-execution team
• Team focused on carrying out a well-defined plan.
  E.g. Software team working on sell-defined
  product upgrade.
• What features should this team have ?
• What team member characteristics are important ?
• What structures would be useful

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Team Models

• Business team
• A team of equals headed by a team lead. Team lead
  serves as technical coordinator and is usually
  chosen based on technical expertise. Team lead is
  responsible for most communications with
  management.

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Team Models

• Chief-Programmer Team
• A team built around a superstar who handles
  most of the technical specifications. Other team
  members specialize according to their strengths
  with a focus of keeping administrative tasks away
  from the chief programmer.

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Team Models

• SkunkworksTeam
• A team that organizes itself internally (without
  management interference). Management is only kept
  informed of overall progress everything else
  stays inside the team. A team lead is either
  assigned internally or arises over time.

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Team Models

• Feature Team
• A team that has specialized members/subteams,
  each one reporting in their area.

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Team Models

• SWAT Team
• A team that has specialized members and is highly
  trained together so every member knows the
  strengths and weaknesses of every other member.
  Has well established structures.

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Team Models

• Athletic Team
• A team that has specialized members where each
  one takes on a specific area. Has well
  established structures.

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Projects and Teams

• Case Study 13-1 Mismatch
• Characteristics of the team?
• Why it failed?

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Projects and Teams

• Case Study 13-2 Good Match
• Characteristics of the team?
• Why it succeeded?

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Building Your Teams
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Self-Assessment Form

• Complete using the form on the website
• Clearly mark your answers on the form
• Keep a copy of the form, turn in the original on
  the due date
• After completing your form, get together with
  potential partners and evaluate the possibility
  of forming a competent, high performance team

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Ratings on the Form

• Rate yourself from 1 to 5
• 1 definitely not a skill that you possess
• 2 classroom/limited knowledge only
• 3 ok can do it, but not really well yet
• 4 one or more successful team projects where
  you used this capability
• 5 professional. This is what you do for a living

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Assignments

• Submit a short paper that identifies your
  proposed team (due September 2).
• Key points
• Each team must have 4 or 5 members
• No close friends/significant others on same team
• CpE, CS and SwE students will be equitably (as
  evenly as possible, given enrollment) distributed
  among the teams (per diagram in Day 1 slides)
• Must have a strong leader on each team
• Consider times of availability, travel, project
  choices, etc.

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Assignments

• Due at beginning of Lab next Friday
• Individual Assessment Forms
• Make a copy for your and your teams use and
  reference later
• During the Lab, each new group will
• Prepare and turn in a Team Assessment form
• Recommend preparing duplicate for team to keep
• Select top 3 projects in order of preference
• Verify/identify your team leader
• Begin the process..

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Team Assessment/Needs

• In our next lab period, you will begin to
  evaluate your proposed team using the team
  assessment vehicle.
• Total score in each skill for all team members is
  the team score
• You may need to assess other skills than those
  listed on the form for your teams project
• If your team score is low in some areas, you will
  need to be sure your planning includes additional
  education

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First Lab After Teams and Projects Set

• First Team Status Report
• Team name!!
• Preliminary roles and responsibilities of
  individuals
• Team weaknesses identified and plan to resolve
• Early assessment of risks associated with your
  project