Team Effectiveness

Below is a sampling of improvement indicators and guiding questions:

Psychological Safety

Signs that your team needs to improve psychological safety:

• Fear of asking for or giving constructive feedback
• Hesitance around expressing divergent ideas and asking “silly” questions

Questions to ask yourself:

• Do all team members feel comfortable brainstorming in front of each other?
• Do all team members feel they can fail openly, or will they feel shunned?

Dependability

Signs that your team needs to improve dependability:

• Team has poor visibility into project priorities or progress
• Diffusion of responsibility and no clear owners for tasks or problems

Questions to ask yourself:

• When team members say they’ll get something done, do they?
• Do team members proactively communicate with each other about delays and assume responsibility?
  

Structure and Clarity

Signs that your team needs to improve structure and clarity:

• Lack of clarity about who is responsible for what
• Unclear decision-making process, owners, or rationale

Questions to ask yourself:

• Do team members know what the team and project goals are and how to get there?
• Do team members feel like they have autonomy, ownership, and discrete projects?

Meaning

Signs that your team needs to improve meaning:

• Work assignments based solely on ability, expertise, workload; little consideration for individual development needs and interests
• Lack of regular recognition for achievements or milestones

Questions to ask yourself:

• Does the work give team members a sense of personal and professional fulfillment?
• Is work matched to team members based on both skills/ability and interest?

Impact

Signs that your team needs to improve impact:

• Framing work as “treading water”
• Too many goals, limiting ability to make meaningful progress

Questions to ask yourself:

• Do team members see their work as creating change for the better?
• Do team members feel their work matters for a higher-order goal?
• How are current team processes affecting well-being/burnout?

Source: https://rework.withgoogle.com/