Team Systems Theory

Abstract

Most organizational research aims to reveal insight into how organizations can be successful. Historically, the focus of much of this research has been on performance and productivity in service to profit and stockholders in for profit enterprises. However, as operating environments have become increasingly competitive, with rapid adoption of technologies and their impact on it, research has widened its scope to include stakeholders, like people and planet, to understand organizational resilience in pursuit of sustainability. Because the cost of education and training has risen rapidly, the urgency to assess, design, develop, implement, and evaluate pedagogy has become vital for not only educational institutions but industry and government. Institutional urgency compels identification of the highest value paths of learning for quantifiable return on investment. Using a systems perspective, this analysis examines the role project teams can have in delivering learning outcomes that provide enduring value to these organizations and their stakeholders. When seen as learning systems, project teams provide an experiential learning approach for sustained, cumulative value.

The proposition of team systems theory is tri-fold. First, a model of project teams as complex adaptive social systems is explained based upon four principles of self-organization, hierarchy, emergence, and learning. Second, an analysis examines the value of project teams as learning systems mediated by action research with affinity toward cultivating communities of practice. Third, by leveraging learning of project teams they become a middle-out strategy for embedding a learning culture that develops adaptive capacity for organizational change and resilience. Project teams are appropriate for continuous improvement and organizational learning through development of communities of practice paired participative action research. This analysis of team systems theory delves into the co-created value of project teams in experiential and organizational learning in education, as well as its implications in wider contexts such as profit, nonprofit, governmental agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. Value can be measured in terms of the efficacy of knowledge networks, risk management, and innovation through mixed methods research. Value grows through formal reflection (e.g., formal debriefing conducted with appreciative inquiry as well as process evaluation) at individual member, team, and organizational levels. Team Systems Theory suggests that creating cultures of learning through progression of project teams toward communities of practice builds co-created value and adaptive capacity. Implications of Team Systems Theory include potential for process improvement and enhanced performance through networked knowledge sharing, as well as increased leadership effectiveness through augmented agility and risk management stemming from organizational change generated from the middle out resulting in organization resilience and sustainability.

Appendix A

Debriefing Format

Questions for Team Discussion:

• 1. What were the team’s strengths?

• 2. What were the team’s weaknesses?

• 3. What were the team’s obstacles and how were they overcome?

• 4. What were the team’s opportunities and how were they used?

• 5. What were threats to the team’s progress?

• 6. What was a transformative moment?

• 7. What worked well?

• 8. What didn’t work well?

• 9. What would the ideal scenario look like? (Flip the “what didn’t work well” statements)

• 10. How might the ideal be achieved?

General Guidelines:

These questions outline a typical debriefing agenda performed in industry. It comprises a modified SWOT analysis (strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats) and an appreciative inquiry approach (AI). It also uses a backward/forward reflection of an ideal that brings the team’s experience into a new vision for the future, similar to “backcasting” from the Natural Step.

A debriefing session, depending on how deeply you delve into the questions, can run an hour or two. If you break the team into groups, for example the leadership team of 10 members, the project team of 15 members, other participating members of 15, or so, it will be manageable in that timeframe. If the groups get larger than 12–15, they are difficult to manage because they digress and waste time easily.

You will want to be free to move around the room and interact with your teammates. To facilitate this, arrange to have two to three highly competent students record the proceedings. You may want to use different forms of media, such as audio and video recording. You may want someone to take notes of what is said, while another to observe behavior. The media and documentation becomes your cache of data for compilation and analysis later. It is the basis for reporting your results in your thesis.

While conducting a team debriefing sounds like a straightforward process, you will want to be prepared for revelatory moments. Some may be emotional. That’s a good thing…you are delving into the heart (core) of the project. You want team members to be comfortable enough to share substantive reflections on the team process.

Sometimes, team members bring up peripheral issues. You can create a “parking lot” for the issues that are not central themes to the project group’s debriefing purpose by listing them on a flipchart for separate discussions at a later time and meeting. Be sure that the parking lot items become actionable by getting individuals to commit to addressing them by specific dates and reporting outcomes. Commitment and accountability are important for follow-up and continuity of the project. They also build trust that supports the debriefing process.

Should the debriefing start slipping into a “BMW session” (boo-hoo, moan, and whine), acknowledge the issue by putting it on the parking lot list and limit the time allotted to that issue to a few moments. Once these items are parked, refocus the discussion on the formatted questions. You will want to keep the discussion moving and constructive without stepping over contentious issues. In other words, honor the emotion, give it a place to be addressed, and move on.

Opening/Closing:

You may want to open the session with an appreciative reflection of the team’s effort, progress, and achievements. You will want to reiterate this appreciation at the close and discuss next steps (e.g., parking lot items, sharing the results with team members after your thesis is complete). You may want to mention any further follow-up or contact team members can expect from you concerning the project and additional research connected to the team.