Building Collaborative Teams: Fid-Bau Portal

Building Collaborative Teams

Smith, Ryan E. / Carraher, Erin / DeLisle, Peter

This chapter discusses the roles and responsibilities of team members and the processes used to assemble, develop, and maintain collaborative teams. The key to successful collaborative project delivery is assembling a team that is committed to collaborative processes and is capable of working together effectively. Well‐composed teams have a good mix of members, people who are neither so similar to one another that they duplicate one another's resources nor so different that they are unable to communicate or coordinate well. A good strategy for assembling a team is to choose two or three core members who excel in the technical skills needed to address the problem at hand, assess their leadership and interpersonal skills, and build the remainder of the team with members that fill any areas that are lacking. There are significant advantages in performance, time saving, and productivity that come as the result of positive past experience. The opposite is true where past experiences have been negative. The most common model that is applicable for smaller projects is an interdisciplinary team comprised of the key core participants that remain consistent throughout the project. Team effectiveness is increased through team diversity, which doesn't just refer to the range of skill sets of team members but also to their range of background.