Theory of Team Needs

• Three components
• Interconnected + tightly coupled
• Managing a team - a balancing act

Task Needs

• Team works towards a vision
• Vision is achieved through strategy
• Strategy is achieved through tactics
• How does a team manage task needs?
  • Planning
  • Organising
  • Directing
  • Reviewing
  • Revising

Team Maintenance Needs

• Communicate and build trust
• Keeping the team informed and involved in decision making
  • Collaboration and saturation
  • Make people aware and feeling involved
• Organising the team
• Training the team
• Establishing and maintaining team standards
• Foster morale and esprit de corps

Individual Needs

• People are unique ❤️
  • Values
  • Attitudes
  • Personality
  • Capability - strengths and weaknesses
• Important to recognise and accomodate for this
• Motivation of an individual
• People are a product of their environment + situation

Team Roles

• Personality and capability influence the roles people play in a team - unofficially as well as officially

Culture

• Personality at the scale of a group
• Traditions + norms
• Codes of behaviour and moral frameworks (unwritten)
• Socialisation + enculturation of new members of the team
• Strongly cohesive groups will inherently pressure new members to conform to their culture

Culture

• Toxic culture
• In a business, culture is by design to suit the needs of the business
• This often happens organically and unconsciously
• Examples
  • Law firm - billable hours
  • Big tech
  • Oil rigs
• Culture is set by the people in charge

Group Development

Tuckman's model of team dynamics:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing
5. Adjourning

Forming Stage

• Team members meet each other 
• Learn about the task/tasks at hand
  • Agile - the type of work that gets done
• Group establishes boundaries socially and professionally
• People begin to understand each other as individuals

Storming Stage

• People become more comfortable and have settled in to the environment + culture
• Members have had the chance to get to know one another
• Sub-groups and hierarchies can emerge
• Internal power struggles
• Things go wrong and conflict ensues
• Teams may fail to get past this stage and collapse

Norming Stage

• Team goes through process of overcoming differences and conflict
• Team becomes cohesive and adapts to the strengths & weaknesses of individuals
• Roles and relationships are clearly defined
• Group culture starts to emerge
  • Codes of behaviour and group norms
• Team develops its individual identity 

Performing Stage

• Team is working well
• Members of the group are comfortable with one another
• Work is smooth and productive
• Balancing team, task and individual needs ensures harmony and order

Adjourning Stage

• All good things come to an end - people leave, task is completed
• Recognising efforts and value
• Helping successful transition to new teams