Team Roles

This module teaches how to structure and staff a team for optimal performance and how to build and maintain a healthy team culture. Participants use the "Team Needs Assessment" tool to identify the task-related and people-related skills a team requires, and a "Diverse Approaches to Work" continuum exercise to map how they and their teammates differ on outlook, decision making, change, people priorities, working style, and risk. Participants also practice auditing team culture and voting on and auditing team norms, and discuss team-forming experiences and culture/norm questions in small groups.

This module teaches participants how to define and structure team roles so that decision-making, accountability, and feedback become clearer and fairer. Participants distinguish task roles (like Project Manager, Meeting Facilitator, and Decision-Maker) from process roles (like Timekeeper, Temperature Taker, and Devil's Advocate), and learn to set both task goals (actions, deadlines, metrics) and process goals (team culture, collaboration norms). Practice includes mapping a sample team's current task, process, and stretch roles; drafting an "ideal email from the future" to surface hopes, concerns, and emerging process themes; and completing a Behavior Matrix or Define Expectations Matrix to set concrete expectations for a team the participant manages.

This module gives teams concrete tools for holding themselves and each other accountable. Participants discuss how accountability currently works on their team, learn a step-by-step approach for addressing an individual who isn't meeting expectations (checking skills, resources, and motivation before considering removal), and practice three recurring feedback structures: Plus/Delta conversations for team retrospectives, Team Ratings (task and process ratings) for surfacing misalignment, and Celebration/Concerns for individual feedback. The module closes with participants assembling a Team Charter that documents task goals, process goals, roles, rules of conduct, and when/how the team will hold itself and individuals accountable.

This module looks at how team transitions???members leaving or joining???affect trust, and what leaders can do to manage those moments well. Participants work through the practice of acknowledging losses (both the task impact and the people/process impact), airing emotional responses, and clearing the air of past issues before refocusing the team on its work. They also examine how to celebrate new members joining, including creating rituals and making introductions that go beyond names and titles to cover personalities, inside jokes, and individual work styles.

This module examines groupthink???the tendency for cohesive, high-pressure teams to favor consensus and morale over critical thinking. Drawing on Irving Janis's research, participants learn the causes and eight symptoms of groupthink (including invulnerability, self-censorship, unanimity, and "mindguards"), then work through a set of countermeasures such as the "5 Why's," "Silence the Leader," anonymous polling, the Delphi Method, Think/Pair/Share, and assigning rotating discussion roles like devil's advocate. Participants map symptoms to specific solutions and tools in a group discussion and workbook exercise, and reflect on times they've personally observed groupthink and what they could do differently next time.

This closing module helps participants consolidate the team roles toolkit covered across the broader Team Roles deliverable ??? including needs assessment, team styles, culture audits, task vs. process goals, team charter tools (Behavior Matrix, Define Expectations Matrix, Define Roles), accountability tools (Plus Delta, Team Ratings, Celebration/Concerns), and trust-building rituals. Participants review the full set of tools, decide which ones fit their own team's situation, and commit to specific actions by reflecting on what they learned and whether they achieved their goal for the session.