Characteristics of a high-performance team
A high-performance team has a shared vision, clear goals, and expectations, effective communication, trust, and ownership (Horine, 2009).
Shared Vision
Each individual in the team is aware of their leader’s vision, is devoted to this vision, and considers the vision to belong to him/her. When all individuals in the team know the direction of the team and how they support the objective and target of the team, productivity improves. Successful teams honor and encompass diverse opinions.
Clear Goals and Expectations
Clear goals and expectations together with recognition of skillful hopes propel these teams. For the team members to work for a common goal each individual must recognize the objectives conclusively and know their roles about the overall project objective. The status of the advancement of the objective requires regular observations to ensure all components of the project are moving concurrently.
Effective Communication
Communication among the team members is important for pooling workforces together. Each team member should speak freely on his or her opinions to ensure discussion on the expressions of different ideas and concerns raised to avoid making mistakes during implementation. Continuous meetings and emails should keep all members updated on team strides and any new areas of interest. These meetings also focus on the percentage of the overall completion of the entire project. As such, the stakeholders can measure the duration required for the project to be completed to come up with necessary actions.
Trust
Members of high-performance teams must have faith in each other to have the ability to get their work done perfectly while observing their timetable. When the members do not have faith in one another to accomplish their assignments, a lot of time is lost supervising each other, which can result in friction in the place of work and close supervision by others.
Ownership
The motivation of high-performance team members is the fact that they own the teams’ goals and that they are part of the prosperity of their team’s project. Each team member is supposed to be involved during decision-making processes. This means that clear goals have been set and the members have expectations, which turns to be the shared vision. Once there is a shared vision, all the team members need to own this vision make putting up clear objectives in terms of achieving their goals.
As a project manager of a project that involved fixed assets management and inventory for a particular local bank. The project was very successful as the completion was on time due to various elements of working as a team. First, there was frequent communication between the team members and the project manager on any issues that arose. The issues were discussed conclusively, each member contributed by giving their opinions which had to be considered before conclusions were made.
Before the start of the project, the project manager identified the project deliverables and then discussed the deliverables with stakeholders including the client and the others who were involved in the contract write-up. The project manager then shared the project deliverables with his team and through discussions came up with the project goals and expectations. The project manager developed a project plan while considering both financial and human resources. The project manager also shared the plan with the client to ensure that the client also made his or her preparations.
There was the delivery of project progress reports to the client every week. Discussions on these progress reports took place weekly by the project steering committee of the project to review the progress of the project. All the above ensured the smooth running of the project at all stages. The timelines were met, all deliverables completed on time, and the client was happy.
References
Gourvish, T (2006). Official History of Britain and Channel Tunnel (1st ed.). London, United Kingdom: Roultedge publishers.
Horine, G. (2009). Absolute beginner’s guide to project management (2nd ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing.
Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.