DESIGNING EFFECTIVE WORK TEAMS
Types of Work Teams
Most commonly, types of teams can be grouped into self-managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams. As mentioned in part one, the authors of Organizational Behaviour define a group as “two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal” (Saks & Johns, 2014). In other words, a team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more larger social systems (for example, business unit or corporation), and who manage their relationships across organizational boundaries. (Sundstrom, De Meuse, & Futrell, 1990). Self-managed work teams are work groups that have the opportunity to do challenging work under reduced supervision. Cross-functional teams are work groups that bring people with different functional specialties together to better invent, design, or deliver a product or service; and virtual teams are work groups that use technology to communicate and collaborate across time, space, and organizational boundaries. (Saks & Johns, 2014).
Designing Effective Work Teams
According to Johns & Saks, there are three fundamental dimensions to teams functioning effectively: the task, team composition, and management support. (Saks & Johns, 2014). The task is what the team is required to carry out; a task is viewed by team members as a challenge. The more complex and interdependent the task, the more it contributes to team effectiveness. The task is a major source of differences among work teams. For example, in a team consisting of electromechanical engineers, technicians, and support staff who spend most of their time erecting a tower crane on a construction project site, the task is challenging, complex, and interdependent. For a