Teams and Variation

Variation is ubiquitous and affects teams in all aspects of team activity from formation to team retirement.  Once source of variability in teams is diversity.  In fact, one of the key benefits of teamwork is that people of varying backgrounds, skills, and interests will find more robust solutions to problems than homogeneous groups.  Of course, the diversity will usually require the allocation of more time to team activity, but the cost of this is typically offset with longer lasting and more complete success.Within teams there will be variation in interest, perception, skills and attitudes.  It is unavoidable.   One consequence of this variation is that a team needs to be managed.  It is well established that without attentive management, processes will not give rise to predictable results and the activities that a team undertakes can be thought of as a process.There will also be variation among teams.  That variation is natural (usually) and to be expected.  From time to time special causes may affect that variation and when it does, special action is needed.It may seem desirable to reduce the variation among teams, but that works against their diversity and a trade-off arises.   Tampering with teams slows their progress and adding people to accelerate the pace of activity can often have the opposite effect.  Likewise setting arbitrary numerical goals for teams is likely to slow them down.  The goal is a prediction and since it is arbitrary (e.g. a ten percent reduction in waste), it is rarely sensible.  In their efforts to please management (or, in a climate of fear, keep their jobs), they will expend more effort on meeting the goal (sometimes by fudging data) than on solving problems. Recognition of team effort is important.  Finally, within teams there will be interactions among the team members.  These can be positive (members tend to complement one another) or negative (lots of divisiveness).  These interaction also need to be recognized and managed.