1 Different types of team

Different organisations and situations may well use different types of team. The type of team affects how that team is organised and managed and what the communication needs of the team are. These in turn are affected by the nature of the task that the team has been created to carry out.

In this section we discuss four types of team: project teams, operational teams, self-managed (or self-directed) teams, and communities of practice. In practice, it is often the case that teams do not fall clearly into one type of team, but may combine elements of different types of team. While project teams and operational teams have been recognised for many years, self-managed teams are a relatively recent phenomenon and reflect flatter organisational structures and the management style of the times. Communities of practice, some would argue, are not teams, but they have come into prominence with the development of the internet, which facilitates bringing together groups of like-minded people who have some shared purpose.