Turning People into Teams

Collaborative strategies work when they're designed by teams-where each person is heard, valued, and held accountable. This book is a practical guide for project team leaders and individual contributors who want their teams to play by a better set of rules. Where do teams go wrong? Having the right people with the right skills doesn't mean they'll know how to work together as a team. David and Mary Sherwin maintain it's all in the design. Through a blend of straightforward activities, conversational stories, and dialogues that help model different forms of team interaction, this book will help teams: - Create workday rituals that aid them in making better decisions and following through on their work responsibilities - Identify patterns of behavior that are getting in the way of team performance, and design and test potential ways to them - Reinforce habits that help team members bring the human element into their interactions and foster open communication Readers of this book will be more prepared to set up and survive challenging projects alongside their coworkers with a shared sense of ownership, and an eye towards retaining the integrity of their teams in the long term. Using a process that has worked at some of the world's cutting edge companies, the authors detail the steps to take control of team design and plan for success. The key is to give every team member a voice in designing the team's rules, and in keeping it aligned with the design over the life of the team.