session_4b__7-17-13_
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Session_4B__7TRANSCRIPT
X-Team Development
1) Select Members and Set the Stage 2) Begin Exploration 3) Engage in Exploitation 4) Follow through with Exploration
1. Select Members and Set the Stage
Select team members for what they know and who they know
Create a culture of success Build psychological safety Learn about what team members know (skills
and expertise)
2. Begin Exploration
Explore task, environment, the customer, technology and competition
Identify all who will be impacted by team Scouting: investigate organizational terrain Ambassadorship: Link team goals to
organization’s goals and get buy in When complete: will have good idea of who
are their supporters and sponsors
Task Coordination to identify dependencies (inside and outside the company) By the end of this phase: will have identified its
task as well as the people outside the team who will be needed to help the team meet its goals
Extreme Execution: develop strong internal team norms and practices By the end of the phase: members should trust
each other and work together well
3 Engage in Exploitation
Team ready to focus on implementation and execution
Scouting (organizational terrain) Ambassadorship (link to strategic objectives) Task coordination (work with other teams and
others in organization to manage dependencies)
Extreme execution: reset team norms and activities
4 Exportation
Exporting project to the rest of the organization Transfer the excitement, motivation, and tacit
knowledge from the team to those who take on the next phase (handoff)
Scouting (organizational terrain) Ambassadorship (communication & buy-in) Task Coordination (dependencies) Extreme Execution (team norms)
1) External Activity: Scouting
Team members must acquire the information that is critical for them to carry out their task. This is both inside and outside the organization.
Read and understand the context.
External Activity: Extensive Scouting
Too much of a good thing. May lead to analysis paralysis and impede
the ability to move from exploring an idea to implementing it.
A continuous search may lead to floundering and deadlines are missed.
But, with poor scouting, teams may be less creative and miss the mark.
External Activity: Three Types of Scouting
1) Investigating the organizational terrain (within the organization)
2) Investigating customers, competitors, current trends
3) Vicarious learning Teams learn by observing others outside the
team or talking to them about their experiences. Avoid making the same mistake as others
2) External Activity: Ambassadorship
Managing up the hierarchy Marketing the project to top management
Links the team with the key strategic initiatives of the organization
Links the team to higher levels in the organization and gets buy-in and support from people with influence.
Helps the team manage the power and politics that is a part of all organizations.
Cautions on Ambassador Behavior
A difficult and delicate dance Teams that do not do well are those that
market and promote their team and the team’s product, even when there is not much of a product to support. Excel at marketing, but poor at implementation.
3) External Activity: Task Coordination
Teams need to be able to coordinate, align, and motivate cooperation from all team members.
Identify dependencies (interdependent relationships) Obtain feedback from other groups/units/teams Convince and negotiate with other groups, inside
and outside the organization, to get the task done
4) X-team Principle 2: Extreme Execution
Execution requires smooth internal operations.
“Externally oriented teams need a climate of safety and reflection that enables them to hold together the team members who must deal with the pulls of external viewpoints and internal conflict.” (p. 88)
External information gathering creates the prime setting for conflict and the need to manage the conflict.
Extreme Execution
X-teams combine high levels of external activity outside the team with extreme execution inside the team.
A means to manage the stresses from divergent information from external sources.
Extreme Execution: Psychological Safety
Team members feel the team is safe and comfortable sharing their ideas interpersonally. Able to take risks Open discussions, good conflict, able to deal with
errors without blaming an individual, no hoarding of information, able to ask for help.
Relies on trust across team members.
Extreme Execution: Team Reflection
Reflect to learn as you proceed on the team. Debrief experiences at different points: end of
project, midpoint, at milestones Revisit the big picture of the team, its vision and
direction on a regular basis or as needed. Goes beyond what did we do well or not so well in
reflections.
Like trust, this is something that is best guided by a team leader
Extreme Execution: Knowing what Others Know
Sharing of information within and across expertise areas to make the team a sum that is greater than its parts.
Tools for Extreme Execution
Integrative meetings: frequent core meetings Participatory and transparent decision-making
procedures: fairness, invite all to share their ideas Heuristics: boundaries about the processes and
decision-making when circumstances are ambiguous; “customer comes first”
Shared timelines Information management systems: tracking and
planning
X-Teams: Flexible Phases
Teams change their core tasks over the team’s lifetime to diminish a team’s tendency to become ‘stuck’ in one mode of operating.
Three phases: 1) Exploration 2) Exploitation 3) Exportation
Scouting occurs in all three phases, but mostly in exploration.
Ambassadorship also occurs in all three phases, but is most evident in exploitation and exportation.
X-Team Phases
Tasks PhasesExplore Exploit Export
Discovery Design Diffusion
X-Team Leadership Sensmaking Visioning Relating
& Relating & Inventing
X-TeamActivities Scouting Ambassadorship Task Coord.
Ambassadorship Task Coordindation Ambassador.
Sensemaking: understanding the context in which a team and its members operate.
Relating: developing key relationships within and across the organization.
Visioning: creates a compelling vision of the future and inventing new ways of working together to realize the vision.
X-Teams: Flexible Phase – Exploration
Discovery Teams examine their external environment,
look into new directions, and consider multiple possible options.
At this phase, the team thoroughly understand the product, process, opportunity or task that the team has undertaken
X-Teams: Flexible Phases – Exploitation
Design Teams must select one direction and take
action towards it and implement their selection.
Use information from exploration to be creative and innovate; move from creative ideas to implementation.
Shift from divergent thinking to convergence and commitment to one.