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This is a case study of a team building workshop developed for a project environment - that is, where team composition is continually changing, and the time available for team building exercises is limited.

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Team Building in a Day 

In most IT departments, projects are rarely static. They have a lot to achieve within very tight timescales, team membership is often changing to bring in appropriate skills, yet they have to work well together, or they will not be fully effective. There is clearly a need for team building, but teams cannot afford to be away from the workplace for any substantial time.

Recognising this, Royal Life commissioned us to produce an effective team-building workshop that was confined strictly to a day. Dave Fenlon, Resources Manager of their Quest Programme, explains:

"Our requirement for team building was straight forward enough - we wanted a workshop that maximised team effort. It was important that such a workshop could:

• be run in a day, for minimal impact on existing workloads
• be aimed at existing or newly formed teams
• be run on request 'off the shelf' - i.e.: that it was repeatable.

The prime outcome of the workshop would be to develop teams where:

• they had a common focus on team objectives - i.e. everyone was pulling in the same direction
• each team member appreciated how, in a practical way, they could help each other to achieve their goals.

We also wanted the team to gain an appreciation of each others' strengths and weaknesses."

The agenda

Although it was a tough challenge to provide all this within a day workshop, we designed a programme that has proved very successful. The format includes:

1. A 'Team Health Check' (assessing our performance as a team)
2. A structured brainstorm to establishing ownership of common objectives - this proves to be hard work and fun but very productive.
3. A video shows the team members how to give feedback constructively to each other.
4. The team then apply what they have seen in the video by giving each other constructive feedback under guidance from the workshop tutor. This session helps to establish areas where team members can help each other improve their performance, and recognise their strengths.
5. Personal and team action plans are then reviewed to help the team decide where to go from here.

Follow up

The feedback from the workshops has shown that the time spent was worthwhile, even though it was hard work, with average ratings on the feedback forms between very good and excellent. The team building work does not end with the workshop, however. At the end of the day, each member takes away a personal workbook that contains actions relevant to his or her development, and that of the team.

Develop Your Potential

Our personality questionnaire can help you:

• become much more self-aware;
• develop your leadership, management or influencing skills;
• find a career that matches your personality;
• Improve teamwork and team relationships.

You can either do the personality test yourself, or administer multiple questionnaires for use in team building and leadership development.