Team evaluation frameworks and methods

Team evaluation: MGI

Fundamentally, my team worked so effectively because of our common goals and determination to succeed. A critical component of creating our effective team was the drawing-up of a team charter. The charter listed team member strengths, duties, processes, ground rules, and above all a timetable of deliverables. Having a series of deadlines for small projects, rather than focusing on the single, final deadlines of the project forced us to keep in constant contact over email and have a consistent and ongoing dialogue about the preoccupations of the case study.

One of the challenges of being a member of a virtual team is that the distanced format can lack accountability, and people do not get a clear sense of the personalities of other team members. However, in the case of our team, we clearly bonded as a unit. The fact that Nicholas Payne was so prompt in getting his information to the team at the beginning of the week set a high performance bar for the rest of us in terms of timeliness. 'No procrastination' was one of our ground rules. I have found while working on previous projects that adhering to a set schedule is often one of the greatest challenges of any team, given that if one deadline is missed, then it becomes 'easier' to ignore others until the project gets hopelessly behind schedule. Everyone on the team was methodical in getting their work in, so the designated member could take their contributions and edit it into a seamless whole.

Reaching out to team members early on was critical in creating a common sense of mission and generating standardized rules and operating procedures by which the entire team was to abide. Ironically, the primary case study of the team focused on a non-functional leadership team at the MGI Company. Unlike the team we were studying, we tried to generate rules which would facilitate communication, reduce interpersonal conflicts and eliminate confusion about who was in charge.

Because of these early, proactive steps and setting firm guidelines, we grew to trust one another, even though we were working as a virtual team which had never met face-to-face. Every team member consistently kept up his or her obligations from week to week. There was no 'social loafing.' Everyone pulled his or her weight. By setting the tone early on that a high level of performance was expected, I realized that I had to be at the top of my game to ensure that my contribution was equal to that of Nicholas' and Cherron's.