Learning teams must be introduced to the various methods for teaming. For resource allocation, nature of work in projects as well as the diversity of people must be taken into account. Work may be process oriented or specialist oriented. Work may be innovative or competitive in spirit. People in the team may be from various cultures and locations on the globe. People may also belong to different generations working toward a common goal in the projects they work on.
Consider a project to improve or upgrade the business HR system with outdated technologies. This is a project that can be accomplished by adopting established analytical thinking methods, information gathering techniques as well as proposal writing guidelines. Teams may consist of specialists from the business side and technologies side familiar with Human Resources functions systems. A project manager or leader who understands the process to get the product functionality right is the added asset for a team. The project can progress with structured methodologies in spite of being a unique project for the specific business.
The Netflix competition of 2008 to improve the movie recommendations system to customers is a very different project launched by the business. The project is characterized by several new approaches to meet the objectives. It is a crowd sourced, predictive analytics based, global contest project in action. Following the course of actions of the company and the teams to face the grand challenge is a lesson in teaming. The basic requirement for teams working on this project was to think effortlessly outside the box with no prior knowledge of the subject matter. The teams demonstrated competition and cooperation to collaborate depending on the need of the hour. People from various nations united and managed to merge and blend among themselves to achieve this common goal at different stages of the project. There was meta learning to ensemble models to achieve the goal and win the prize. The approaches are not limited to a predictive analytics competition, several mergers and acquisitions that happen in the business world have valuable lessons to offer in teaming.
Connecting with a diverse group of people including different generations at the work place virtually or face to face is a challenge. Resolving conflicts to lead and being led is not easy. With high achieving and performing teams, there is an added challenge of the paradox of self versus the team's achievement. Shifting perspectives from the truths that worked before will require changes as the teams transition thru stages of their own lives as well as those of others. Several insights and perceptions on how people think about others and themselves need to be cleared by education and learning.
Training effective teams to prepare for higher education settings as well as the workplace need to consider the multi dimensional factors that come into play for teaming. Teaming can be an effective tool by itself to handle life and work challenges, assimilating best practices in a short term when several people with varied interests come together to get work done.
