7 Reviewing and evaluating team performance

This section is one that is generally applicable to the management of people, not just groups and teams. It will help you to identify sources of conflict and the ways in which conflict can be managed. Note that not all conflict is bad: sometimes it can be constructive, if handled effectively. There are times when it is better to ignore conflict. However, in each case, you will have to use your judgement.

Evaluating team performance is an important element of team working. It can take a number of forms, such as: reporting on progress informally at weekly team meetings, group reviews at key stages along the way, and full and formal external evaluation once the project is completed. Encouraging the team to take responsibility for this evaluation process makes it much more a part of everyday work and less of a management control exercise. Managers and teams need to agree what needs to be reviewed and evaluated, how it is to be done and how it can help the team to be more successful.

Here we present a number of approaches for reviewing team progress and processes and for evaluating team effectiveness at the end of a team task or project. We suggest you use whatever seems most suitable for your purposes.

Adair’s model of team work (1983) is useful as a framework for reviewing and evaluating because it highlights the interdependency between the task, the team and the individual in achieving team effectiveness. Questions to consider are:

• The task
  • Are there enough resources and internal and external support (external climate)?
  • Is the task fully understood? Has it been broken down sufficiently into component parts?
• The team
  • Are there the right constituent parts to achieve the current task?
  • Has the group formed well?
  • Are team members communicating well and reviewing their progress regularly?
• The individual
  • Are individuals learning from the experience?
  • How are they dealing with their expectations, hopes and fears of this team-work experience?
  • Are there issues from previous group-work experiences that need addressing?
  • Do they have enough support and development opportunities to perform and develop their roles?
  • Are they aware of the consequences of their individual actions in working with or against team processes?

West (2004) proposes that there are two fundamental dimensions of team functioning: the task the team is required to carry out and the social factors that influence how members experience the team as a social unit. He suggests that for both of these to work effectively teams need to:

• review objectives and find ways of achieving them
• reflect on the ways in which the team provides support to members, how conflicts are resolved and what the social climate of the team is like.

West has developed a questionnaire, set out in Box 9, to measure how well these two factors are working. He suggests it is completed individually without consultation. It could then be used as a means of identifying and agreeing problematic areas to work on.