Team effectiveness – development of an audit questionnaire

Abstract

Much has been said and written about the importance of teams to the success of organisations and emphasis has been given to the benefits of team‐building activities to achieving both team and organisational effectiveness. Describes attempts to move beyond team building and to link organisational development to team effectiveness in a coherent way. In order to achieve this goal, a team effectiveness audit tool has been devised which is based on individual self‐assessment. The audit tool focuses on six domains considered to be important in effective teams. The self‐report audit tool has now been used by over 140 teams across a range of public‐sector organisations and this has enabled a significant database to be built up. This provides a large normative data set against which individual team performance can be gauged. Focuses on data derived from 37 teams within an integrated acute and community health and social services (HSS) trust. Overall the team effectiveness audit tool has been well received and has proven to be an effective mechanism of linking individual and team performance with organisational‐management objectives.