handbook of improving performance in the workplace: volumes 1-3 (ispi/handbook of improving...

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S SCHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cross-Disciplinary TeamLearningScott P. Schaffer

INTRODUCTION

Understanding how to support teams has become a matter of urgency for

many organizations. Globalization has created information, communication,

and technological challenges and opportunities that require collaboration.

Much research on the power of team learning in such collaborations suggests

ways to improve team learning processes and effectiveness. Using teams to

improve organizational performance gained currency as part of the total

quality movement, wherein activities are based on teamwork. A review of

more than a hundred studies identified three major categories of team process:

(1) identification and matching of individual goals and perceived interests and

abilities with attributes of the team project; (2) formation of a group of indi-

viduals via project coordination, management, goal setting, leadership, resource

provision, and several other such support systems; and (3) completion of a

project and the related documentation requirements and reflection related

to project satisfaction and success. While all teams theoretically move through

these processes, there is great variation in the context or situations inwhich team

work is performed. Performance support systems for teams should be focused

on both individual and team performance and the related practices necessary

to achieve results. An example of such as system is the cross-disciplinary team

598 Handbook of Improving Performance in the Workplace, Volume TwoEdited by K. H. Silber, W. R. Foshay, R. Watkins, D. Leigh, J. L. Moseley and J. C. DessingerCopyright © 2010 by International Society for Performance Improvement. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-470-52543-2

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learning (CDTL) framework developed to guide designers of team performance

systems, especially teams comprised of people from different disciplines and

cultures.

DESCRIPTION

A cross-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary team is comprised of two or more

individuals from different disciplines interacting to solve a complex, ill-struc-

tured problem. Such teams have many characteristics in common with groups,

but groups, by definition, work on less complex and/or less enduring tasks.

Teams from the same discipline may engage in similar processes as cross-

disciplinary teams but have less potential for new knowledge creation, given

their more narrow perspective. Cross-disciplinary team performance can thus

be thought of as an extension of task completion to include innovation and

organizational capacity building (see Part Nine of this handbook). Typically,

such a team will be represented by different levels of technical expertise as well

as non-technical expertise in areas such as sales, marketing, human resources,

accounting, and so on. Many examples of such teams can be found in the design

arena within software development and product design firms. An example of an

innovative team in the manufacturing sector is nicely illustrated by Dorothy

Leonard, who describes how a small steel company leverages the knowledge of

its associates across technical, quality, and managerial functions to solve

emerging problems. Cross-disciplinary teams are also naturally found in cus-

tomer service environments, where content experts and sales associates are

often teamed, and in healthcare, where physicians, nurses, physicians’ assis-

tants, and therapists may be part of a treatment team.

WHAT WE KNOW FROM RESEARCH

As organizations have become flatter, the horizontal relationships between

workers and work functions have been the focus of much research. Famous for

1989’s Cooperation and Competition, Johnson and Johnson’s fundamental work

related to cooperation within groups and the interdependence of group mem-

bers. Studies of team work and high performance work organizations also

increased dramatically as organizations began organizing work units and cells

as part of their total quality management and process improvement efforts.

Furthermore, Dorothy Leonard-Barton’s research, published in 1995 as Well-

springs of Knowledge, focused on how organizations develop capacity to learn

and innovate while solving problems highlighted the importance of knowledge

building by high performing, cross-functional teams.

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY TEAM LEARNING 599

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Organizational learning theorists such as Peter Senge, Ikujiro Nonaka, and

Hirotaka Takeuchi also propose that individual interaction is the basic unit of

knowledge and that teamwork is the primary way to disseminate that knowledge

throughout the organization. According to Peter Scholtes, Brian Joiner, and

Barbara Streibel’s Team Handbook, teams appear to be particularly effective, or

at least more effective than individuals, when: a task is complex, creativity is

needed, the path forward is not clear, efficient use of resources is required, fast

learning is necessary, high levels of commitment are desirable, implementation

requires cooperation with others, and the task requires cross-functional pro-

cesses. What does a high-performing team look like? High-performing teams

are extremely results-focused and often work with a high degree of autonomy

and flexibility. Such teams may be formed to solve problems that emerge during

large complex projects. Such teams may be called upon to redesign a process or

develop a new product in response to customer requirements or a change in the

availability of materials. High-performance teams are also formed proactively

with a mandate to create new approaches to doing business.

Recognition of the power of team learning has resulted in a plethora of

studies suggesting ways to improve team learning processes and effective-

ness. A 2005 review of more than one hundred such studies led by psycho-

logy professor Daniel Ilgen and management professor John Hollenbeck at

Michigan State University has identified three major categories of team

process that consistently emerge: (1) identification andmatching of individual

goals and perceived interests and abilities with attributes of the team project;

(2) formation of a group of individuals via project coordination, management,

goal setting, leadership, resource provision, and several other such support

systems; and (3) completion of a project and the related documentation require-

ments and reflection related to project satisfaction and success. While all teams

theoretically move through these processes, there is great variation in the

context or situations in which team work is performed. Context has been

Expanding Your Options

Job rotation systems—job designs in which employees movedbetween two or more jobs in a planned manner. The goal is toexpose the employees to different experiences and a wider varietyof skills to enhance job satisfaction as well as provide cross-training.

Based on businessdictionary.com definition (January 2009)

600 HANDBOOK OF IMPROVING PERFORMANCE IN THE WORKPLACE

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identified as a critical mediating factor in team performance. But how does a

manager or team member understand the importance of context and the impact

it has on performance? For an answer, we turn back to academia and collabo-

ration research as well as the role of activity systems in defining context.

Within the academic community, computer-supported collaborative work

(CSCW) emerged as a way to systematically examine the impact of emerging

information and communications technologies on collaboration efforts in

groups or teams. The CSCW movement eventually was subsumed more or

less within the learning sciences and computer supported collaborative learning

(CSCL). This evolution has created both opportunity and challenges relative to

applying CSCL research findings to practice. A focus on collaborative learning

and the group unit of analysis has been a step toward a better understanding

of team collective thinking or team cognition. Examination of the team as unit

of analysis has evolved from an emphasis on the social and cultural aspects of

team systems. One example of this type of framework that has risen in

popularity is the use of activity theory to describe team interactions from a

socio-cultural systems point of view. The outcomes of an activity system are the

result of interactions between people, the artifacts they create, tools they use,

how they divide labor, the roles different members of the community (manag-

ers, customers, suppliers, consultants) play, and the rules under which teams

and the community must operate.

Activity systems help to describe team context from a social and cultural point

of view. Research situated within globally distributed teams of architecture,

building construction, and engineering school at Stanford University help to

explain team context from a cross-disciplinary learning point of view. These

researchers studied how team learning evolved during a project and, especially,

how (and if) team members from different disciplines interacted in innovative

ways. Using descriptive and qualitative methods of data collection with large

numbers of students, patterns of team learning they characterized as cross-

disciplinary learning or CDL were identified. These patterns were summarized

as (1) islands of knowledge, defined as individual problemsolving focused on their

own discipline-specific knowledge; (2) awareness, defined as recognition of the

potential importance of other teammembers’ discipline knowledge to the project;

(3) appreciation, characterized by active listening, questioning, and concept

development; and (4) understanding, characterized by team members active

discussion about and use of the language of one another’s discipline. As team

members evolved toward understanding, Fruchter and Emery report in the 1999

Proceedings of the Computer Support for Collaborative Learning conference,

projects became more innovative in design and that teams generated ‘‘new

knowledge’’ that resulted in process improvements or in some cases whole

new processes.


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A framework for assessing and developing teams I created is shown in Figure

25.1. This cross-disciplinary team learning (CDTL) framework provides theo-

retical grounding for assessing team learning and performance requirements.

Performance support systems for teams should be focused on both individual

and team performance and the related practices necessary to achieve results.

The CDTL framework has been developed to guide designers of team perform-

ance systems, especially teams comprised of different disciplines and cultures.

It includes the following elements: Identification, Formation, and Adaptation.

The relationship between the elements is complex, dynamic, and non-linear.

Behaviors, attitudes, and cognitions associated with each of the elements have

been validated with over one thousand individuals and 350 cross-disciplinary,

project-based teams in a university setting. Scales based on the framework were

represented by statements describing each of the CDTL elements. These scales

were certified by team learning experts as part of a content validation study.

Questionnaire items based on the scales were administered to team members

whose responses were then aligned with CDTL elements via factor analysis

to validate the scales.

WHEN TO APPLY

While there is a high degree of complexity involved in supporting cross-

disciplinary teams, many organizations have other performance improve-

ment processes in place that can be leveraged to help keep teams on track.

Employee selection and orientation training that emphasizes cooperation and a

team approach would create conditions for successful team formation. Knowl-

edgemanagement systems (see Chapter Fifteen) that emphasize creation of new

knowledge that can be spread to the rest of the organization help create a culture

Self-efficacy

Identification Formation Adaptation

Individual process

Knowledge acquisition

Collective efficacy

Team goal

Knowledge creation

Figure 25.1 Macro-Level Cross-Disciplinary Team Learning Framework.


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that promotes innovation. Such a culture is essential for cross-disciplinary

teams that thrive on being able to draw from the knowledge and experiences

of others. From a technology support perspective, existing performance support

systems may be adapted to address team needs. Performance support systems

often have extrinsic support features that may be readily used by teams to

manage processes, communicate, or share information.

Establishing cross-disciplinary teams is critical for organizations that place a

high value on innovative solutions and developing a capacity to learn and solve

future problems. This tends to be the case for diverse teams working on relati-

vely complex and long-term projects. These are typically product design and

development teams but also could be implementation teams or smaller teams

involved in managing caseloads over a long period of time. A definite trend in

team research is a renewed focus on teams in customer service environments

including healthcare. Teams put together for the purpose of completing a

relatively routine or short-term task are not as likely to benefit greatly from

an emphasis on team interaction. Teams are more likely to benefit from support

based on CDTL when they are comprised of individuals from at least two dif-

ferent disciplines, when the project task(s) is sufficiently complex and of long

enough duration, and when the development of long-term organizational learn-

ing capacity is part of the mission of the organization. In recognition of the fact

that many organizations have little expertise with using teams, a summary of a

few strengths and criticisms of cross-disciplinary teams follows.

STRENGTHS AND CRITICISMS

Strengths

� Teams are more effective than individuals when a project is complex and

requires a creative solution.

� Cross-disciplinary teams produce a wider variety of creative, innovative

solutions. The logic follows that organizations that nurture diverse teams

develop the capacity to solve future problems or respond to opportunities,

and research supports this contention to a degree.

� Forming teams with individuals from different disciplines greatly in-

creases the number of divergent ideas generated during brainstorming and

scoping/defining phases of a project.

Criticisms

� Evidence of the effectiveness of diverse teams is mixed. Literature shows

that, while diverse teams are creative, they are also prone to inefficiencies

and longer cycle times.


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� While a culture of learning within an organization is necessary for

capacity-building, organizational cultures that value task completion over

innovationwill generally not see the potential benefits of supporting cross-

disciplinary learning processes.

WHEN TO APPLY

An old adage in the instructional design field suggests that understanding the

task, the learner, and the context leads to effective learning experiences. Thus, it

is not surprising that these factors are essential to understanding the design of

support systems for cross-disciplinary team learning. Complex, ill-structured

tasks or problems that have many possible solutions are ideal for cross-

disciplinary teams that will naturally bring a variety of perspectives to the

situation. Identification of individual behaviors, cognitions, and attitudes as the

team evolves is critical to the design of learner feedback systems. In terms of

context, the team socio-cultural system can be characterized as the tension

between project outcomes, artifacts, tools, roles, customers-community, and

organizational rules and guidelines.

The CDTL framework best addresses opportunities to leverage existing capa-

bility. For the most part, teams are made up of dedicated individuals who want to

do a good job. The challengemay be that they have little experience workingwith

others with different skill sets than their own. In the previously mentioned

healthcare example, the performance challenge is that there are different levels of

service that must be provided. A patient makes an appointment with a staff

person, then is first seen by a nurse or practitioner, then is seen by a physician,

then perhaps a specialist or therapist, and then follow up is provided again by the

nurse practitioner. Ideally, one person would do all of this, but this is just not

possible. From a performance improvement perspective, a challenge such as this

requires muchmore than training to learn how to be a better teammember.What

is required is clear alignment of an organization’s vision and team and individual

performance goals. From a cultural point of view, organizations that value team

and cross-disciplinary team learning and the collective expertise that is brought

to bear on problems should communicate this value to others.

Guiding principles and related behaviors to support team learning have been

developed to help transfer CDTL research to practical settings. Principles are

meant to provide a crosswalk to competencies or skill sets that organizations

may have already identified as important for team work. The design of task,

learner, and context support, John Wedman has asserted since 2004, should be

aligned with adequate resources to support team performance. A description of

each principle is provided in Table 25.1.


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RECOMMENDED DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, ANDIMPLEMENTATION PROCESSES

Applying these principles in practice follows the basic CDTL processes identified

in Figure 25.1. These overlapping and iterative processes are not linear but will

be revisited throughout a project. The processes include:

1. Identify individual and team goals and develop a system to monitor or

track goal attainment. This is similar to the analysis phase of the ADDIE

model given that performance goals of the project must be identified and

specific objectives for accomplishing tasks assigned. Performers also

assess their levels of self-efficacy and overall readiness to effectively

participate on the project. Ideally, individual development plans are

incorporated into the overall performance system. From a team learning

perspective, individuals begin the process of becoming aware of other

team members’ backgrounds and experiences.

Table 25.1 Principles of CDTL

Principles Description

Support individual and team self-

regulated learning

Individuals set personal goals for the project

and monitor them relative to team goals. Team

process goals are monitored relative to its

cross-disciplinary evolution.

Expect teams to learn and perform

across disciplines during projects

Specific guidelines for individual and team

learning and performance are incorporated into

the performance review process.

Reward team member provision of

ongoing, experiential feedback

Peer feedback is supported with a

documentation process that compensates high

performers. Subsequent new knowledge

generation is part of overall team performance

evaluation.

Provide tools to manage, build, and

share new team knowledge

New knowledge assets generated by the team

are captured by collaboration systems that

support information sharing and

communications.

Incentivize teamwork that leads to

innovation and capacity-building

Highlight accomplishments of high knowledge-

generating, innovative teams with case studies,

bonuses, and other recognition.


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2. Form team roles, sub-teams, and support systems. This phase

incorporates elements of analysis, design, and development as team

leaders and role players emerge and objectives for the project are

continually clarified. Information and communications technologies that

incorporate features that support critical reflection and peer feedback

are selected and individuals are provided guidance in using these tools.

As teams form, individuals become increasingly aware of and begin to

appreciate the perspectives of team members from other disciplines.

3. Adapt project processes and deliverables to reflect team knowledge. In

this phase, team members implement and test ideas and concepts based

on their collective understanding of project and client requirements. This

phase includes project completion and reflective evaluation of

project success by team members and clients. Teams that have

effectively learned from one another during the project through high-

quality interactions would be expected to be more creative and

innovative as reflected in the products and reusable knowledge

generated during the project.

Supporting Technologies

A common challenge for many teams is identifying technologies to support

cross-disciplinary work, which often requires high levels of collaboration and

communication. While it is not likely that teams will be able or even want to

develop their own tools, they may be in a position to recommend collaboration/

communication tools, features, or requirements to the information technology

function in their organization. Table 25.2 shows the alignment of CDTL

Table 25.2 CDTL Design Principles for Supporting Selection/Evaluation of CollaborativeSoftware Applications

Support Systems/Tools CDTL Design Prescriptions

Embedded implicit or explicit cues or

scaffolds in tools such as journals, blogs,

and other personal reflection spaces

Support individual and team goal

setting and planning, guide individual

and team self-reflection, facilitate

individual and team self-observation of

performance

Access to individual and team spaces

and their interactions/contributions

Facilitate setting of individual and team

learning and performance goals, and

provide spaces for individual and team

self-assessment. Support the inclusion


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Support Systems/Tools CDTL Design Prescriptions

of team members’ discipline-centered

descriptions and profiles and promote

awareness of team members’ ongoing

contributions

Smart links to customized, disciplined-

based vocabularies and glossaries

Provide access to language tools; track

team members’ cross-disciplinary

language adoption

Chat, discussions forums, and other

communication tools with embedded

mechanisms for reaching common

agreement (techniques to close

communication loops)

Support negotiation of cross-disciplinary

perspectives and language and use of

clear and concise communication among

team members

Contextual comment boxes, voting tools,

quality assurance and product/process

satisfaction polls

Facilitate intra-team peer feedback;

encourage client and community

feedback; enable internal and external

expert feedback; support feedback across

teams

Include aural and visual cues of face-to-

face discourse and provide examples of

effective and ineffective ways of

disagreeing and criticizing

Support effective interactions among team

members; integrate different forms of

discourse and knowledge representation

Discussion forums with branching and

mapping features

Facilitate unified team areas for problem-

centered discourse. Provide access to

semantically structured knowledge maps

and information repositories. Encourage

team members to build on each other’s

work and ideas

Allow team members to create a

community that connects actual, past, and

prospective team members, experts, other

project teams and stakeholders

Facilitate social networking

Collaborative writing/design tool with

parallel access to chat or discussions

Provide facilities for simultaneous task

allocation and articulation

Create collaborative meeting agendas,

electronic meeting system, alternatives

generation and voting, etc.

Support team decision-making processes


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principles with the features of four commonly available collaboration tools or

systems. This table also illustrates how these tools vary in their ability to

support team practices thought to be critical to innovation. A particular

challenge is for many teams to move beyond a project focus that emphasizes

task completion to a focus on problem solving and user-centeredness. The latter

requires interaction among individuals frommultiple disciplines with a range of

experience and expertise levels. Design principles for supporting teams shown

in the table are tied to the performance support, social-cultural, and knowledge

development systems that underlie the CDTL framework.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

Much research has focused on identifying factors necessary for successful

implementation of teams. These factors generally cluster into system factors

and human factors. System factors relate to vision, management, performance

measures, and political considerations, while human factors relate to knowl-

edge and skills, leadership, and culture. These factors are briefly described

below:

Vision

� Organizations that succeed because they ‘‘knowwhat they know’’ and can

act upon this knowledge have created both a top-down and bottom-up

approach to innovation. Leaders who understand the importance of

aligning resources with high-yield, hard-to-measure team learning

processes must be willing to take risks. The payoff, more innovative

products, services, and processes, is much easier to measure.

Management

� Great cross-disciplinary teams are not accidents. Planning, goal setting, and

feedback systems are an integral part of the CDTL framework. Teams have

difficulties when they fail to include reflection time in project schedules.

Reflection helps managers see where more support is needed, when roles

can be shifted, or how barriers to performance may be addressed.

Measures

� Clearly defined mission, vision, and goals understood and developed by

teammembers strongly relate to successful teamwork. Teams with clearly

defined missions are able to, in turn, define roles and clarify the impor-

tance of tasks to be completed. This team focus creates an expectation of

success that is measureable and aligned with customer requirements.


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Politics

� The identification and management of external relationships and their

impact on team processes helps teams think systemically and value

contributions of entities outside the team. Government, society, suppliers,

customers, managers, and other teams all have potential influence on

team process and outcomes. Seeing the process from the point of view of

these entities can be a particular strength of a cross-disciplinary team.

Knowledge and Skills

� A key strength of cross-disciplinary teams is the breadth of knowledge and

skills possessed by its members relative to homogeneous teams. This

strength is represented in the team’s collective problem-solving and

creative abilities, as well as the potential array of technical skills integrated

into overall team processes.

Leadership and Culture

� It is one thing to build tools and processes that can support teams and then

hope they will use them. It is quite another to nurture a participatory

culture that seeks out such tools to support innovation and creativity.

Armed with a clear vision, goal, expectations, and potential rewards,

cross-disciplinary teams become subcultures or micro-systems that have

the potential to become viral and spread influence throughout an orga-

nization. This kind of contagion may have short-term side-effects but

excellent long-term benefits.

SUMMARYThe relationship between teams and performance is complex. Evidence has

shown that teams outperform individuals when tasks require complex, creative

solutions. However, teams often underperform and are forced to isolate project

tasks to complete them on time and within budget. In this chapter, we advocate

for setting higher expectations and goals for teams, which necessitates rethink-

ing team composition to assure diversity and cross-functionality. While teams

comprised of multiple disciplines are desirable in many situations, such teams

require performance support that is appropriate and targeted. The cross-

disciplinary team learning framework provides a way forward for a learning

function in an organization that uses teams to solve problems. The framework

provides specific guidelines for supporting team systems, human resources,

and enabling technologies with a focus on team results that are innovative and

creative in their execution.


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Note

For many examples of how activity systems are applied within the domain of human

performance technology (HPT), see the 2007 special issue of Performance Improvement

Quarterly focused on this topic. Furthermore, a chapter by Sasha Barab, Michael Evans,

and Eun-Ok Baek in the 2004Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and

Technology is dedicated to the use of activity theory as a lens for examining group and

team work within the performance improvement arena.

References

Barab, S. A., Evans, M. A., & Baek, E.-O. (2003). Activity theory as a lens for charactering

the participatory unit. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), International handbook on commu-

nication technologies (Vol. 2, pp. 199–214). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.

Fruchter, R., & Emery, K. (1999). Teamwork: Assessing cross-disciplinary learning.

In C. Hoadley & J. Roschelle (Eds.), Proceedings of the Computer Support for

Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 1999 conference. Stanford University, Palo Alto,

California.

Ilgen, D. R., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M., & Jundt, D. (2005). Teams in organizations:

From input-process-output models to IMOI models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56,

517–543.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and

research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book.

Leonard-Barton, D. (1995). Wellsprings of knowledge: Building and sustaining the

sources of innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Scholtes, P., Joiner, B., & Streibel, B. (1996). The team handbook. Madison, WI: Oriel

Incorporated.

Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization.

New York: Doubleday.

Wedman, J. F. (2004). Welcome to exploring the performance pyramid. Columbia, MO:

University of Missouri. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://performance pyra-

mid.missouri.edu/.

Recommended Readings

Engestr€om, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to

developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.

Guzzo, R. A., & Dickson, M. W. (1996). Teams in organizations: Recent research on

performance and effectiveness. Annual Review of Psychology 47, 307–338.

Kelley, T., & Littman, J. (2001). The art of innovation: Lessons in creativity from IDEO,

America’s leading design firm. New York: Doubleday.


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Koschmann, T. D. (1994). Toward a theory of computer support for collaborative

learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 219–225.

Lei, K. (2007). Cross-disciplinary team learning (CDTL) model: Development and

validation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Purdue University.

Sawyer, R. K. (2007). Group genius: The creative power of collaboration. New York: Basic

Books.

Schaffer, S. P., & Lei, K. (2007). Supporting collaborative problem solving in engineering

design teams. Paper presented at the 36th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education

Conference, San Diego, CA.

Stahl, G. (2006). Group cognition: Computer support for building collaborative

knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

S EDITORIAL CONNECTIONS STeams play an important role in many, if not most, organizational activities.

Production teams, management teams, cross-disciplinary teams, and many

others are common in organizations. Today, the roles for teams are also

expanding with the development of less-formal networks and communities

of practice that link together the task-orientation of teams with the benefits of

networking.

As a result, you can effectively use teams—in many different forms—to

improve performance. Cross-disciplinary teams can, for example, directly

address a specific performance issue in your organization, just as management

teams can be used to support the application of other performance interven-

tions. In all cases, consider the benefits of using teams to build knowledge and

skills. Use cross-functional teams, for instance, as a way to build individual

knowledge through interactions with peers from other functional units of the

organization, or use production teams to generate improvements that stretch

beyond the combined capacity of individual team members.

Expanding Your Options

Tuition reimbursement system—an organizational policy ofcompensating employees for expenses accrued while engaging ineducational endeavors that enhance the employee’s skills andknowledge in a way that may be beneficial to the organization.


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Just as you can use other performance interventions, such as training,

e-learning (see Chapter Twenty-Four), or performance support (see Chapter

Fourteen), the development of team knowledge and skills is critical to the

improvement of performance. As with individuals, building the performance

capacity of teams, units or groups, requires your attention. From mentoring of

teams to webinars supporting team learning, you should build the knowledge

and skills of teams to ensure their capacity to achieve desired results.

WHAT’S COMING UP

In Chapter Twenty-Six, mentoring is examined as a performance interven-

tion for developing the knowledge and skills of individuals and teams

within your organization. While often associated with the professional devel-

opment of junior employees, mentoring can also be an equally effective

intervention for building basic skills (for example, procurement, software)

or the capacity to apply complex knowledge (for example, leadership, knowl-

edge management, interpersonal communications). For that reason, mentor-

ing can be a dynamic intervention within many improvement efforts, offering

unique benefits for building knowledge and skills through mentoring relation-

ships, rather than formal training.


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