The learning that takes place within teams is directly related to continuous measurement—surfacing and collecting data about the performance of the team. Data can be numbers or stories or both, as long as they are credible to the team members and other stakeholders. These data are used to assess progress and outcomes; they keep the team energized and focused on goals. Teams that do not receive this feedback will stagnate and lose energy.
The following questions will help you assess and measure your own team’s progress:
1. What are our learning and performance goals, as a group?
2. Does our team have the right people and skills to achieve our goals?
3. What will we have to learn in order to be successful?
4. Does our meeting structure encourage honest interaction and cooperation?
5. Do we feel mutually respected and trusted?
6. Do we believe that we can take risks and make mistakes without penalty?
7. Are we receiving the recognition and reward that we deserve?
8. What are we learning?
9. To what extent is our team making progress toward our performance goals?
10. What is it about the structure and culture of the larger organization that is a barrier to our team’s learning and development?
11. What must be changed for us to be more effective as a team? How might we create this change?
12. What have we accomplished as a team?
13. How has our team affected the larger organization?
14. How has our team contributed to the larger organization achieving its strategic goals?
What questions would you like to investigate about your team? List them here.
The right measurement strategy for you will depend on which of these questions you ask. The most common method for assessing team members’ attitudes, perceptions, and self-report of behavior is a paper-and-pencil survey of those individuals. However, other kinds of data will require more useful methods, such as:
• face-to-face interviews of individual team members and people who interact with the team
• group interviews of all team members
• structured observations of team meetings
• surveys of the team’s customers
• telephone or computer-aided interviews of team members
• analysis of performance indicators, as reported in the organization’s records
The data-gathering should be appropriate to the situation and be directly related to the kind of information needed by the particular team for continuous improvement or accountability. For example, if you want to know how people feel about being on the team, you should interview or survey team members. If you want to know about progress in team development (for example: team formation; communication among members; meeting dynamics; problem-solving and decision-making; rewards and recognition), observe the team in action and check your observations against the observations of the team leader and team members. If you want to know the impact of the team on the organization, survey the internal customers and examine indicators of team output. But only collect data that you and others will use to improve practice; otherwise, you are just wasting time and resources and you will lose credibility with team members.
The real value of continuous assessment is in using the findings to enhance the capacity of the team to be successful and increase its impact on the larger organization. Your actions can have tremendous impact if you do the following:
• Help teams participate in, understand, and value the continuous-measurement process.
• Engage team members as much as possible in collecting and interpreting data.
• Help them learn from the data and use the data for planning purposes.
• Ask team members:
• What does the data say about the team’s performance?
• What does the data say about resource needs?
• How should the team change the way it functions, given the data?
• How can the team make sure that it meets its goals?
• What information should be communicated to the wider organization?
• Help the team learn how to learn from continuous assessment.