An important and integral part of process workflow design is development of high- performance work teams. It would make no sense to design a new process work- flow and expect it to be competitive if its workforce is not provided with proper incentives, and trained and willing to work at target levels of productivity and quality. Deployment of high-performance work teams is essential to an organi- zation. Table 5.16 lists ten key principles necessary to develop high-performance work teams to move an organization toward higher performance levels. The first key step in deploying a high-performance work team is to ensure that the team is
table 5.16 10 key Steps to develop high-Performance Work teams
1. Ensure the team is formed around common goals and objectives coincident with a work area.
2. The team members should be jointly accountable for success or failure. 3. Ensure the team has a diverse membership and has been trained in
proper facilitation methods.
4. All team members should have the required skills to support their team. 5. Ensure the team has adequate resources for its goals and objectives. 6. Clarify team roles and responsibilities.
7. Develop mechanisms to share information in an honest and open manner. 8. Resolve team conflicts in a positive manner.
9. Ensure the team remains on schedule and meets its goals and objectives. 10. The team should remain together for an extended period.
formed around common goals and objectives that are coincident with their work area. The second is that team members should be jointly accountable for the success or failure of the projects assigned to their local work area. This will tend to foster cooperation and collaboration among team members. A third important step is to ensure the team has a diverse and properly facilitated membership. Also, all team members should have the skills required to support their team. The fifth key step is to ensure the team has adequate resources to execute its goals and objectives. The team should also clarify its roles and responsibilities relative to the assignment of its work tasks. The seventh step is to develop systems to share information between all team members in an honest and open manner to encourage cooperation. Also, team conflicts should be resolved in a positive manner using proper facilitation methods. The ninth step listed in Table 5.16 recommends a team remains on schedule and meets its goals and objectives using effective project management practices. Project management will be discussed in Chapter 18. Finally, it is important a team remain together for an extended period to evolve into a high-performance work team. This will increase the probability it will achieve organizational goals and objectives.
In addition to the specific steps required to create a high-performance work team, teams go through a four-stage evolutionary process as they mature. These stages are forming, storming, norming, and performing. In the forming stage, the team meets and begins to develop common goals and objectives. However, there is often much confusion at this point in the team maturation process. Also, pro- ductivity is very low in this formative stage. It is during this stage that the team develops basic facilitation tools and methods to achieve its goals and objectives. The team may be focused on a single project or several projects within its local work area. One of the most important facilitation and project management tools, at this point in the team’s project, is a project charter. An example of a project charter is shown in Figure 7.9. The project charter specifies where a team will work, the resources required for team activities related to data collection, analysis and work- flow improvements, the specific objectives of its work, and the expected business benefits, both financial and operational. These project objectives include achiev- ing improvement targets according to the project’s schedule. In the storming stage of team maturation, there is often a conflict among several team members due to different perspectives on how the team should proceed with its work. Exter- nal facilitation of the team may be useful during this stage of team maturation. Part of the facilitation process includes development of a team code of conduct to ensure team member disagreements are resolved in a mutually agreeable man- ner. In the norming stage of the team maturation process, the team’s productivity increases, as it resolves team conflicts more effectively than in previous maturation stages. In this maturation stage the team begins to succeed in achieving its goals and objectives relative to the project’s milestone activities. Finally, in the perform- ing stage, the team works together to consistently achieve its goals and objectives. High-performance work teams must be methodically developed by an organization because work is best done using the full range of employee skills and capabilities.
Using Lean Methods to Design for Process Excellence n 161
An important enabler of high-performance work teams is an organization’s reward and recognition systems. These systems should be aligned to recognize teams’ con- tributions to their organization. Individual recognition must also be designed into the incentive system in a balanced manner.