A systems approach to team performance measurement

Teams are rapidly becoming the primary work unit across business and industry. Much has been written about the advantages of teams in problem solving, decision-making, quality improvement and performing complex tasks. Likewise, the body of knowledge surrounding team development, teamwork and team dynamics has grown rapidly over the last 15 to 20 years. Many theories of team performance have been developed. However, few unified approaches to measuring team performance have been proposed. Team performance measurement (TPM) is important for several reasons: 1) team measures have a motivating and focusing influence on team processes; 2) measurement provides necessary feedback for decision-making, problem diagnosis and intervention; and 3) measurement is fundamental to team learning and continuous improvement. The premise of this thesis is that the design and deployment of effective team performance measurement strategies can best be accomplished through a systems approach. A systems approach to TPM considers the following: I) The object of the measurement, the team is a system. 2) Team performance measurement strategies must consider the elements of the system (members, sub-teams, tasks, processes and interfaces) in addition to system outputs. 3) The team operates within an organizational super-system, which imposes contextual and environmental influences on team performance. 4) Team performance measurement is itself a system, with an associated function, interrelated elements, interfaces, influences and context. This thesis suggests an architectural framework for analyzing the critical factors influencing team performance and a holistic TPM framework for developing and deploying a balanced set of team measures.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Hunt, Daryl R. (Daryl Roscoe), 1955-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John R. Williams.

• System Design and Management Program

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9622

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/9622