E.            Team dynamics and performance

                                                       1.            Team stages and dynamics
Define and describe the stages of team evolution, including forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning, and recognition. Identify and help resolve negative dynamics such as overbearing, dominant, or reluctant participants, the unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts, groupthink, feuding, floundering, the rush to accomplishment, attribution, discounts, plops, digressions, tangents, etc. (Understand)

                                                       2.            Six sigma and other team roles and responsibilities
Describe and define the roles and responsibilities of participants on six sigma and other teams, including black belt, master black belt, green belt, champion, executive, coach, facilitator, team member, sponsor, process owner, etc. (Apply)

                                                       3.            Team tools
Define and apply team tools such as brainstorming, nominal group technique, multi-voting, etc. (Apply)

                                                       4.            Communication
Use effective and appropriate communication techniques for different situations to overcome barriers to project success. (Apply)

Team Stages

·          Forming – expectations unclear; interactions superficial; members explore boundaries of acceptable behavior.

·          Storming – conflict and resistance to group’s task and structure; members think individually, are overwhelmed, learning roles, but they want the project to move forward.

·          Norming – group cohesion develops; conflicts reduce; focus on objectives.

·          Performing – team begins to work effectively and cohesively; achieve goals and work smoothly.

·          Adjourning – at end the team disbands

Team Roles

·          Black Belt – most effective in full-time process improvement positions. Team leaders, internal consultants, instructors, mentors.

·          Master Black Belt – teachers who mentor black belts and review projects. An active black belt that demonstrates skill through significant, positive financial impact and customer benefits.

·          Green Belt – not usually full-time process improvement; mastered the basic skills and training to be black belt under the guidance of black belt.

·          Champion – upper level managers that control and allocate resources for projects and training.

·          Executive – sets the direction, priorities, and objectives of the organization and strategies for six sigma deployment.

·          Coach – typically a black belt or master black belt.

·          Facilitator – the team leader is often the facilitator, but a separate facilitator is often useful for team startup and other team arrangements. If there is no facilitator the leader, black belt, and/or coach assumes the duties. Focuses on the team process and the leader focuses on the team product (results).

·          Team member – participates, encourages, and applies.

·          Sponsor – the process owner that champions the project.

·          Process owner – champions/sponsors the project

·          Leader – normally trained as both facilitator and Black Belt. The team leader focuses on the team product (results) and the facilitator focuses on the team process.

Team Tools

·          Brainstorming – a non-critical, intentionally uninhibited technique for generating creative ideas. Everyone is encouraged to participate, record, and incubate ideas to reach consensus for an appropriate course of action.

·          Nominal group – brings people together to solve problems but limits initial interaction among them to prevent peer or social pressures from influencing ideas. The term nominal describes the limiting of communications.

·          Multivoting – a popular method to select the most popular or potentially important items from a list. Team members vote to prioritize items.

Communication

·          Downward – from top of organization to lower level employees. A detractor is the filtering process.

·          Upward – from the bottom or grassroots to higher levels. Open door policies, surveys, suggestion boxes, etc.

·          Horizontal – sharing across same levels