Low-performing Teams Research Articles

Team Decision-making Interaction and Performance: A Behavioral Process-based Relationship Study

This study combined the dual perspectives of team interaction and decision-making stages. Based on 22,654 behavioral units from 20 four-person teams, we developed a team decision-making process model encompassing goal-driven patterns, information sharing, knowledge integration, and decision-making transition. Additionally, we found that high-performance teams engage more in exploratory discussions, timely summarization, and conflict coordination mechanisms, compared to low-performance teams. We summarize the specific interactions that are beneficial and harmful to decision-making performance. This study supplements previous research on team interaction during the decision-making stage and expands the nuanced understanding of how team interactions affect decision-making performance.

Communication Strategies in Human-Autonomy Teams During Technological Failures.

This study examines low-, medium-, and high-performing Human-Autonomy Teams' (HATs') communication strategies during various technological failures that impact routine communication strategies to adapt to the task environment. Teams must adapt their communication strategies during dynamic tasks, where more successful teams make more substantial adaptations. Adaptations in communication strategies may explain how successful HATs overcome technological failures. Further, technological failures of variable severity may alter communication strategies of HATs at different performance levels in their attempts to overcome each failure. HATs in a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System-Synthetic Task Environment (RPAS-STE), involving three team members, were tasked with photographing targets. Each triad had two randomly assigned participants in navigator and photographer roles, teaming with an experimenter who simulated an AI pilot in a Wizard of Oz paradigm. Teams encountered two different technological failures, automation and autonomy, where autonomy failures were more challenging to overcome. High-performing HATs calibrated their communication strategy to the complexity of the different failures better than medium- and low-performing teams. Further, HATs adjusted their communication strategies over time. Finally, only the most severe failures required teams to increase the efficiency of their communication. HAT effectiveness under degraded conditions depends on the type of communication strategies enacted by the team. Previous findings from studies of all-human teams apply here; however, novel results suggest information requests are particularly important to HAT success during failures. Understanding the communication strategies of HATs under degraded conditions can inform training protocols to help HATs overcome failures.

A Novel Team Formation Framework Based on Performance in a Cybersecurity Operations Center

A Cybersecurity Operations Center (CSOC) performs various tasks to protect an organization from cyber threats. Several types of personnel collaborate to function effectively as a team to analyze the threat signals, in the form of alerts, arriving from various sources. Teams are often formed ad hoc, resulting in an imbalance in their performances and thereby increasing the risk associated with the low-performing teams. The current approach taken by behavioral scientists in forming effective teams focuses on first qualitatively assessing individuals such as analysts, who are then grouped into teams based on their credentials and expertise. Our work takes a holistic view of the CSOC by first defining team requirements and then selecting individuals to form several collaborative teams that meet these requirements for every shift of operation. We present a novel team formation framework that integrates optimization, simulation, and scoring methods to form effective teams and introduce a new collaborative score metric that measures their effectiveness. Results from simulated experiments show the formation of effective teams whose collaborative scores are maximized and balanced. Our approach is also able to identify high and low performers within the first few months of implementing the framework.

COMPARING COLLABORATIVE CAD MODELLING PATTERNS OF HIGH-PERFORMING AND LOW-PERFORMING TEAMS

AbstractThe development of cloud-based Computer-aided design (CAD) enabled real-time CAD collaboration between multiple designers. While this technology has great potential to change the way CAD work is done, it is still little explored. This paper presents a case with two high-performing and two low-performing three-member teams monitored with non-invasive methods (log data) during a six-week design project. The results show that high-performing teams focused more on the editing of assembly, while low-performing teams focused on creating and editing a part. Furthermore, high-performing teams tended to perform consecutive deleting actions and to transition to creating and editing classes of CAD actions after performing viewing actions. Two modelling approaches which lead to high-quality CAD models were identified. One approach is characterized by frequent use of transitions between editing and Organizing-Design (collaborative actions) classes, while the other between creating, editing and reversing classes. Presented results allow design teams to gain insight into sequential patterns which led to the generation of a high-quality CAD model and to better understand the CAD modelling process.

IS IT BETTER? EXPLORING THE EFFECT OF TRANSITION GOAL AND VIRTUAL REALITY ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

AbstractTransition activities, such as design reviews, are often utilised in product development to evaluate the conducted work and plan future actions. While key decisions are made during these activities, they are still underexplored. This paper studies the effect of transition goals and virtual reality (VR) on transition team performance. In an experimental study, four-member teams conducted two transition-related experimental tasks (validation and verification) working in one of the two conditions (VR or desktop interface). The results show that transition goals and VR affect performance. More specifically, the validation-oriented transition was more efficient but less effective than the verification one. Furthermore, the performance of the validation-oriented transition compared to the verification one was increased in VR and decreased in a desktop interface. Finally, the high-performing teams consistently discussed new issues, while low-performing teams had prolonged moments of not discussing anything new. These findings suggest that desktop interface and VR are not substitutable but rather complementary technologies.

CONNECTING DESIGN ITERATIONS TO PERFORMANCE IN ENGINEERING DESIGN

AbstractNo matter a system's size, complexity, or domain, iterations are fundamental to its design process. However, there is a duality: iterations are both signs of usefully exploring the system's design space and failure to find an appropriate solution. This ambiguity means that we have not been able to connect teams’ iterating behavior to their design's performance, potentially obscuring a way to influence the design process.As such, our exploratory study unpacks the relationship between design iterations and performance. We observed 88 teams in the 2020 Robots to the Rescue Competition in rich detail. Using logs of 7,956 iterations on a Computer-Aided Design platform, we analyzed how high- and low-performing teams revised their submissions, searching for consistent differences in their behavior. We found significant differences in the iterations’ number, scale, and cadence between these groups of teams. These findings emphasized the correlation between certain iteration patterns and the success of a design: the best teams will likely revise differently than the worst ones. It also showed the importance of a fine-grained, time- dependent view of the design process to resolve open questions in the literature.

Information sharing behaviors in text-based communication during emergency response.

Emergency response teams consist of highly experienced professionals who must effectively communicate to respond to crisis situations characterized by high levels of uncertainty and complexity. Although the existing literatures on team collaboration and information processing are well established, research examining team information sharing through text-based communication technology facing emergency situations is limited. With the increasing complex nature of emergency response situations, emergency response organizations are likely to introduce new technologies to address such events. In this paper, we examine text-based information sharing behaviors related to team situation awareness in a simulated fire-rescue operation of 62 teams. We elaborate on different types of information sharing behaviors and identify a typology and linguistic features as well as differences between high- and low-performing teams in the occurrence of team situational information sharing behaviors. We conclude by discussing implications for emergency response teams and implications for future research avenues.

What characterize high and low achieving teams in Interprofessional education: A self-determination theory perspective

ObjectivesCalls to promote team-based interprofessional collaborative practice in managing patients with complex health problems are ubiquitous. However, the literature remains silent on what characterises successful teams in interprofessional education (IPE) and on profiling successful teams. To help conceptualise successful teams, this study investigated the differences in attitudes and achievement between high- and low-performing teams in an online asynchronous and synchronous IPE programme, and the role of autonomous motivation in determining team membership. MethodsUsing extreme case sampling involving health and social care students, we identified ten high-performing teams and seven low-performing teams based on their team composite scores on three interprofessional collaborative outcomes: team effectiveness, goal achievement, and scores on the readiness assurance test. Each team had five to seven members of diverse backgrounds. Independent t-tests were performed to identify differences in interprofessional collaborative outcomes, namely teamwork and collaboration, patient-centredness, diversity and ethics, community-centeredness, and interprofessional biases for the affective domain and application exercise for the cognitive domain. We employed logistic regression in which autonomous motivation was used to predict group membership. ResultsHigh-performing teams were characterised as those whose members endorsed or valued “teamwork and collaboration” in IPE simulations. Compared with the low-performing groups, they better recognised and endorsed diversity and ethics, patient-centeredness, and community-centeredness. Membership to high- and low-performing teams was linked to autonomous motivation. ConclusionsHigh-performing teams have higher favourable valuing of important interprofessional collaborative competencies, and membership to which is predicted by autonomous motivation. The results suggest the need to pay special attention to struggling teams to facilitate desirable collaborative competencies, especially in terms of members' motivation. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.

Workplace Implications of Psychological Empowerment on Emotional Exhaustion: Review and Outlook

Purpose: This paper is an attempt to provide an understanding of the psychological empowerment and primary manifestation of burnout i.e., emotional exhaustion. Through this paper, the relationship between four dimensions of psychological empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self- determination, and impact) and emotional exhaustion is analyzed. Design/Methodology/Approach: Studies were reviewed spanning dozens of articles and research papers to clarify the concept of psychological empowerment and emotional exhaustion. Also, the work of different researchers and academicians has been reviewed to elucidate what is known concerning burnout’s key component, emotional exhaustion. Few empirical investigations on psychological empowerment and burnout have been reviewed to investigate their relationship in different work situations. Findings: The outcome of the review has brought out that psychological empowerment is a unique force that an organization can use to turn its low-performing team of employees into high performing team by doing away with or mitigating emotional exhaustion. The only requirement is that organizations need to have policies of justice and communication with a ‘people-first’ approach. Research Limitations: The major limitation of the study is that the study is limited to the extensive review. Managerial Implications: The outcomes will give managers and practitioners’ better recommendations for preventing emotional exhaustion at the workplace. It is very crucial in the workplace and highlights the need for managers to discover other strategies for increasing psychological empowerment which will mitigate the effect of emotional. Originality/Value: The study showcased the original work of the authors in the reviewing the existing studies.

What Situation Is This? Shared Frames and Collective Performance

We study agents who distill the complex world around them using cognitive frames. We assume that agents share the same frame and analyze how the frame affects their collective performance. In one-shot and repeated interactions, the frame causes agents to be either better or worse off than if they could perceive the environment in full detail: it creates a fog of cooperation or a fog of conflict. In repeated interactions, the frame is as important as agents’ patience in determining the outcome: for a fixed discount factor, when all agents choose what they perceive as their best play, there remain significant performance differences induced by different frames. A low-performing team conducting a site visit to observe a high-performing team will be mystified, sometimes observing different actions than they expected or being given unexpected reasons for the actions they expected. Finally, we distinguish between incremental versus radical changes in frames, and we develop a model of category formation to analyze challenges faced by a leader who seeks to improve the agents’ collective performance.

Trust and Team Performance in Human–Autonomy Teaming

ABSTRACT This study aims to better understand trust in human–autonomy teams, finding that trust is important for team performance. A Wizard of Oz approach was used to simulate an autonomous agent team member, in a remotely piloted aircraft system research environment, to study the relationship between trust and team performance in human–autonomy teams. Results show that (1) there are lower levels of trust in the autonomous agent in low-performing teams compared with medium- or high-performing teams; (2) there is a loss of trust in the autonomous agent over time across low-, medium-, and high-performing teams; and (3) both low- and medium-performing teams indicated lower levels of trust in their human team members. These findings indicate that trust in a teammate (autonomous or human) is associated with team performance and that trust may evolve over time irrespective of team performance.

A cautionary tale about the impact of AI on human design teams

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer opportunities for integrating AI into human design teams. Although various AIs have been developed to aid engineering design, the impact of AI usage on human design teams has received scant research attention. This research assesses the impact of a deep learning AI on distributed human design teams through a human subject study that includes an abrupt problem change. The results demonstrate that, for this study, the AI boosts the initial performance of low-performing teams before the problem change but always hurts the performance of high-performing teams. The potential reasons behind these results are discussed and several suggestions and warnings for utilizing AI in engineering design are provided.

Does Team Interaction Exploration Support Resilience in Human Autonomy Teaming?

Project overview As a team explores interactions, they may find opportunities to expand and refine teamwork over time. This can have consequences for team effectiveness in normal and unexpected situations (Woods, 2018). Understanding the role of exploratory team interactions may be relevant for human-autonomy team (HAT) resilience in the face of synthetic agent rigidity and lack of anticipation (Demir et al, 2019). Team interaction exploration was defined as team interactions with qualities (e.g. content, communication medium) unique to a team’s interaction history (Cooke et al., 2013; Hills et al., 2015). This study examines the relationship between team interaction exploration and HAT performance in multiple remotely-piloted aerial system (RPAS) reconnaissance missions with degraded conditions. The goal of the task was to take good photos of target waypoints. In this task, three teammates are assigned to specific roles: the navigator plans the route using a digital map, the pilot (synthetic) controls the RPAS and selects target waypoints, and the photographer calibrates camera settings to take a good photo of a target waypoint. The synthetic agent was capable of routine team coordination without explicit team player qualities. Teams communicated via a text-chat interface. Seven unique degraded conditions were injected throughout ten missions. Three automation failures disrupted RPAS status information on the photographer’s or pilot’s display, and three autonomy failures disrupted the synthetic agent’s comprehension of waypoint information or caused the agent to move on to the next target before a photo was taken. Finally, a malicious cyber-attack caused the synthetic agent to fly the RPAS to an enemy occupied waypoint. Method Forty-four participants were recruited from a large southwestern university in pairs and formed teams (22 teams) to participate in this study. These participants were either undergraduate or graduate students. This experiment consisted of ten 40-minute missions in total that were carried out over two sessions separated by one-to two-week intervals. After a baseline mission, an automation and autonomy failure was injected into each mission while the team processed target waypoints. The malicious cyber-attack occurred during the final 20-minutes of the tenth mission. This study collected a several measures including measures of team process, physiological measures, and surveys of teamwork knowledge, trust, workload, and anthropomorphism which are not considered in this study. Exploratory team interaction was operationalized as any text-message unique in content, sender, or recipient that was unrelated to routine coordination of target waypoints. Teams were grouped using k-means clustering by their target processing efficiency, number of overcome roadblocks, and mission performance. The three clusters ( K = 3) were comparatively described as low- ( N = 7), middle- ( N = 7), and high-performing ( N = 5) teams. A mixed-factor ANOVA compared the frequency of each team’s exploratory interactions by mission and cluster. Results and discussion High-performing teams were distinguished from middle-and low-performing teams in their ability to maintain high levels of overall performance while efficiently processing targets and overcoming many roadblocks. Middle-performing teams were efficient in overcoming roadblocks but had worse mission performance. The findings indicate that 1) high-performing teams explored team interactions more than middle-performing teams, 2) there was no significant difference in exploration frequency between high-and low-performing teams, and 3) teams explored more in the first session than the second session, with the exception of the final mission. Overall, exploratory team interaction differentiated HAT performance in normal and degraded conditions and should be further examined at other levels of interaction, such as content meaning and interaction patterns.

Best Practices Framework for Enabling High-Performing Virtual Engineering Teams

Engineering firms continue to adopt the practice of virtual teams, which face unique challenges and require additional management considerations than co-located teams. While virtual teams offer incentives in terms of flexibility and cost savings, engineering firms should be aware of added challenges that yield low-performing teams or result in failure. These challenges, in essence, are driven by the geographic dispersion of members, core reliance on communication technology, and composition of various cultures. The subject research follows a highly practical approach, providing specific practices for mitigation of the identified challenges. A survey study was conducted to gather data from engineering practitioners at a global professional services firm involved in virtual engineering projects between 2017 and 2018. Research conducted across best practices for virtual teams, coupled with the survey results, yielded a framework of five overarching themes to enable high-performing virtual engineering teams: technology integration, management of virtual resources, project governance controls, stakeholder engagement, and organizational drivers. Resulting practices are presented across the five themes of the framework. The findings should be leveraged by engineering and technology professionals involved in virtual projects, along with leaders and firm executives seeking improved performance of their virtual teams.

Predictive factors of the attack efficacy: the case of the Brazilian women’s Volleyball League champion team

Abstract The aim was to identify the predictive factors of the attack efficacy of the Brazilian women’s League Champion team according to the level of performance of the opposing team.The sample was composed of the observation of 1137 attacks in 21 games of the 2015-2016 Brazilian women’s Volleyball League champion team. The results were significant to identify the predictive factors of the attack efficacy against high (.2=110.562; .<0.00001), intermediate (.2=64.134; .<0.00001) and low (.2=62.137; .<0.00001) performance opponents. Thus, it is concluded that when playing against high- performance teams, powerful attack for position 6 and second attack tempo increase the chances of attack point; powerful attacks for position 1 and 5 reduce the chances of game continuation; and powerful attack for position 6 increases the chances of blocking. In addition, in games against intermediate-performance teams, reception that allows organized attack without all attack options reduces the chances of attack point and game continuation, while the reception effect did not seem to be a predictive factor of the attack efficacy in games against high- and low-performance opponents and, finally, in games against low-performance teams, powerful attack for position 1 reduces the chances of game continuation and attack blocking.

BEHAVIOURAL DIFFERENCES OF HIGH AND LOW PERFORMING TEAMS: A MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL STUDY OF FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN TEAMS

Abstract – This paper compares student intra-team feedback to identify behaviours that differentiate high and low performing teams. Data from two universities’ first-year engineering design courses was analysed and demonstrated that the ways in which students discussed high and low performing teams was similar. This paper discusses some of the issues with which low performing teams struggled. Both high and low performing teams experienced a lack of quality and quantity of communication, whereas low-performing teams struggled with hoarding work, leveraging team members and supporting others. High-performing teams may have a more collective team mindset that values the skills and perspectives of all team members more.

Supportive supervision and constructive relationships with healthcare workers support CHW performance: Use of a qualitative framework to evaluate CHW programming in Uganda

BackgroundWhile evidence supports community health worker (CHW) capacity to improve maternal and newborn health in less-resourced countries, key implementation gaps remain. Tools for assessing CHW performance and evidence on what programmatic components affect performance are lacking. This study developed and tested a qualitative evaluative framework and tool to assess CHW team performance in a district program in rural Uganda.MethodsA new assessment framework was developed to collect and analyze qualitative evidence based on CHW perspectives on seven program components associated with effectiveness (selection; training; community embeddedness; peer support; supportive supervision; relationship with other healthcare workers; retention and incentive structures). Focus groups were conducted with four high/medium-performing CHW teams and four low-performing CHW teams selected through random, stratified sampling. Content analysis involved organizing focus group transcripts according to the seven program effectiveness components, and assigning scores to each component per focus group.ResultsFour components, ‘supportive supervision’, ‘good relationships with other healthcare workers’, ‘peer support’, and ‘retention and incentive structures’ received the lowest overall scores. Variances in scores between ‘high’/‘medium’- and ‘low’-performing CHW teams were largest for ‘supportive supervision’ and ‘good relationships with other healthcare workers.’ Our analysis suggests that in the Bushenyi intervention context, CHW team performance is highly correlated with the quality of supervision and relationships with other healthcare workers. CHWs identified key performance-related issues of absentee supervisors, referral system challenges, and lack of engagement/respect by health workers. Other less-correlated program components warrant further study and may have been impacted by relatively consistent program implementation within our limited study area.ConclusionsApplying process-oriented measurement tools are needed to better understand CHW performance-related factors and build a supportive environment for CHW program effectiveness and sustainability. Findings from a qualitative, multi-component tool developed and applied in this study suggest that factors related to (1) supportive supervision and (2) relationships with other healthcare workers may be strongly associated with variances in performance outcomes within a program. Careful consideration of supervisory structure and health worker orientation during program implementation are among strategies proposed to increase CHW performance.

A profile of high-performing global virtual teams

PurposeThere is a paucity of research into high-performing virtual teams. This study aims to design and test a model of virtual team performance and to produce a profile of high-performing teams.Design/methodology/approachThe main constructs found to have influenced virtual team performance in business were trustworthiness, commitment, communication characteristics, cross-cultural communication style and structure effects. New or revised scales to measure these and a new performance measure, based on five performance criteria, were developed. A research model was designed and tested, and a profile of high-performance teams produced. The sample from a global telecoms company comprised 108 global virtual teams. Two senior managers rated performance independently.FindingsHierarchical regression results explained 75.7 per cent of the variance of performance. Analysis of variance revealed that model fit was highly statistically significant. Trustworthiness was identified as the predominant factor, explaining a majority of the dependent variable’s variance, while interpersonal communication, commitment and cross-cultural communication style were also identified as important. The 52 items differentiating high- and low-performing teams are reported and discussed.Originality/valueThe research model makes a contribution to team performance theory and understanding, especially the relative importance of constructs for explaining performance. The profile of high-performing teams adds greatly to our knowledge and provides valuable guidance for team management, selection and development.

Analyzing the Social Knowledge Construction and Online Searching Behavior of High School Learners During a Collaborative Problem Solving Learning Activity: a Multi-Dimensional Behavioral Pattern Analysis

The present study aims to explore the behavioral patterns of the social knowledge construction process and the online searching behaviors in a collaborative problem solving learning activity for high school students, and further compares the different behavioral patterns of the high- and low-performing teams. A total of 78 high school students from two schools participated. This study applied sequential analysis to analyze the students’ social knowledge construction and online searching behavior from a large amount of screen-recording data. Interestingly, the results indicate that social interaction that is irrelevant to the discussion task is significantly correlated with academic-related discussion content. Reaching a higher cognitive level of social knowledge construction (e.g., reaching agreement or applying newly constructed meaning) contributes to a successful team project. For online searching behavior, the high-performing teams exhibited systematic online searching behavior and concentrated on the task, while the low-performing teams displayed chaotic searching behavior and were distracted from the task at hand, and seemed to rarely propose their searched results or ideas in their discussions. Based on the results, several possible explanations and suggestions are proposed including the need to promote more adaptive motivation and to provide scaffolding for collaborative skills.

Coupling Interactions and Performance: Predicting Team Performance from Thin Slices of Conflict

Do teams show stable conflict interaction patterns that predict their performance hours, weeks, or even months in advance? Two studies demonstrate that two of the same patterns of emotional interaction dynamics that distinguish functional from dysfunctional marriages also distinguish high from low-performance design teams in the field, up to 6 months in advance, with up to 91% accuracy, and based on just 15minutes of interaction data: Group Affective Balance, the balance of positive to negative affect during an interaction, and Hostile Affect, the expression of a set of specific negative behaviors were both found as predictors of team performance. The research also contributes a novel method to obtain a representative sample of a team's conflict interaction. Implications for our understanding of design work in teams and for the design of groupware and feedback intervention systems are discussed.