Types of Teams in Contemporary Organizations free essay sample

We can define team as a group of individuals who are working together (not necessarily present physically at a common place) to achieve a common goal and thereby benefits for an organization through collaborative decision making. The successful team cannot be established until they have clear vision (Lewis, 2006) . According to Hackman following are the characteristics of a team: 1. Characteristics. 2. Shared goal. 3. Interdependence among members. 4. Identifiable membership. Literature review In order to get maximum output from employees, teams are being made in the organization. There are different types of teams. Depending on the needs of an organization, teams are being configured to get the success. Broadly we can classify teams under following categories which are: 1. Problem-solving teams. 2. Self-managed work teams. 3. Cross functional teams. 4. Virtual teams. It all depends on the different departments of an organization that what type of teams they want to have. For example the consultancy firms generally comprise off problem-solving teams. As team contains interdependent members, who share common goal and who contribute to each other in a large organization, therefore the success of a team depends on team’s internal and external dynamics (Bang, 2004). Internal dynamics is the internal activities that happen inside the team or among team mates. Good relations between the team mates will result to better productivity. If there are conflicts occur within the team then it will effect the productivity and efficiency of team in negative way. Now I am going to discuss how these teams are made. Basically team making is dynamic process and successfully construction of team depends on the size of an organization and number of members in the team. Generally, team-building is a five stage process. First stage of team building is called as start-up stage or forming stage. In this stage the organization describes the nature of the team, number of members that a team is going to have, structure of the team and the goals which the team is planning to achieve. The second stage is known as conflict stage or storming stage. It is quite possible that members of team will disagree on development process, structure and methods to attain the goals. This may come as barrier in the way of developing the team and hence a troublesome stage in the process of building a team. Therefore a sufficient time must be given to all the members of the team to work through disagreements. The next stage is team work stage. At this stage, individual team member in the team make their roles and responsibilities. The team members interact with each other. The next stage in team development stage is called as achievement stage or performing stage. In this stage the team is become operational. In this stage, regular meetings related to goals achieving take place. The team starts interacting with other teams of an organization in order to attain goals. The last stage of the cycle of team development is called as change stage or reforming stage. As the time passes, the way in which team is performing may no longer meets the organizational. The above steps show how a team comes into picture and works for an organization to attain the goals. (Lewis, 2006) Now in current scenario when globalization in industries is on the increase then it is not necessary that all the members of a particular team are present at a single physical location. They may present at different physical location in the country or may be situated at different parts of a globe too. In that case they have to be connected through some internet technologies in order to work together. These types of teams are called as virtual teams. The virtual team can also be called as Geographically Dispersed team (GDT) (Stephen C. Betts M. D. , 2006). By having these kinds of teams, the organization is benefitted by recruiting the best people for the team regardless of the geographic location. In today’s scenario, in many virtual teams people work from their home also. There are different types of virtual teams which are as follows: 1. Networked Teams 2. Parallel Teams 3. Projector Product-Development Teams . Work or Production Teams 5. Service teams 6. Management teams 7. Action teams Since team members of a virtual team are spread over the locations therefore there are some advantages and disadvantages of these kinds of teams. As these kinds of teams are physically spread over the locations therefore people of different mental ability, different efficiencies, different work environment work together. By this all of them can share their views to get a better result th ereby can increase organizational output. Hence members of these teams are located on different locations, therefore people are of different cultures which may lead to cross culture environment which can become a barrier in getting the desired output. The manager faces difficulties in managing the whole team. The manager should know all the languages where all the team is spread. (Amin Kaboli, 2006) Learning Outcome After doing this assignment, I came to know about different things about teams like how are they made, merits, de-merits of teams and so on. I also learnt many things about virtual teams which are very much being used now a days and their advantages and disadvantages. Apart from these theoretical concepts, I also learnt from this assignment that all the work should be completed on the deadline to avoid extra burden of work.