Ground Rules Analysis: How to Set Effective Ground Rules for Your Team

An Effective Team 

The team had a good leader who served as the backbone of the team as he was able to specify goals and set up work sessions and meetings, which eyed goal advancement. The atmosphere in the team was conducive to success all because of an effective leader (Wysocki, 2011). Secondly, the team had a good source of creative energy that came from their creative director who made sure that thinking was critical and fresh new concepts were introduced when handling tasks. They also had effective networkers who looked at potential new openings due to their determined attitudes and social skills. When faced with tough situations and difficult times, the cheerleader came into play by keeping the morale and productivity of the group high. Lastly, the team had an efficient functioning team due to the presence of a secretary who was hands-on when logging everything precisely such as new ideas, plans, and tweaks. 

The behavioral expectations that enabled members to hold each other accountable were reliable results and reliable relationships. In essence, team members set expectations, invited commitment, measured progress, provided feedback, had a link to consequences, and evaluated their effectiveness (Colan, 2015). From the simple approach, the team managed to attain high performance in their work. The aspect of setting expectations for the team looked at working towards the same purpose in order to attain success. After setting the goal, it was time for the team members to commit themselves to achieving the stated goal. Later, accountability comes in by having information that helps in measuring the ongoing performance of team members. Here, it was necessary for teams to gauge their progress in terms of whether or not they are meeting their desired goals and expectations. The feedback provided after measuring the team’s progress was useful in solving problems and implementing follow-up actions. 

Ground rules (Stuart, 2014): 

• State views and asks genuine questions 
• Sharing relevant information 
• Agenda items should address team health, goals, and functionality of the team
• During the meeting, only one person will speak at a time
• Eliminate any thing distractive such as switching off the phones 
• Use specific examples and focus on consensus building
• Explain all points exhaustively 
• Focus on team interests and not positions
• The next step needs to be designed jointly by all team members
• Assumptions and inferences need to be tested
• Un-discussable issues need to be discussed 
• Avoid side conversations or gossip 
• Members will share their unique perspectives

The identified ground rules will help the team move towards team performance and collaboration (Schwarz, n.d). By taking time to talk with team members concerning assumptions and the team’s norm helped in saving time and accelerating results. Hence, the ground rules formed part of what we expected the team to achieve; this enhanced the building of trust among team members. Moreover, a certain amount of accountability was also built by setting the ground rules. 

The Ineffective Team 

The team was not effective because they did not ascribe to one common goal. Therefore, they relayed different ambitions when accomplishing given tasks. In this team, all members played different roles and they competed with each other negatively when it came to accomplishing their tasks and responsibilities. As a result, all members became leaders at a given time and were micro-managing each other and became a source of all conflicts in the team. Moreover, the team members did not have healthy communication channels to help them solve the rising problems. This hampered the process of implementing solutions for the identified problems. The problems included the fact that there were members who help ground rules while others were in conflict and viewed themselves as ‘above’ their other team members. Such behavior led to the ineffectiveness of the group because there was no overall leader that would be accountable for the teams’ mistakes, accomplishments, and success. 

The existence of such gaps in the group enabled the penetration of diverse issues that would hamper the accomplishment of given tasks because they are individualized when performing their duties. Team members are not known to share ideas and this hampers their levels of productivity and creativity. Such a difference is known to cause great conflict amongst team members because every one wants their ideas and opinions implemented all at the same time. This is impossible because there are those ideas that are not viable, while others do not serve the common interests of all group members. As such, this causes conflict and damages the performance of team members because they are not united in meeting the stated goal, vision, and mission of the entire group. Their performance is also hampered because the team members are not motivated enough to meet their desired goals as a team because each one of them is working alone. A dialogue about ground rules can salvage such a group because their efforts will be driven towards attaining a particular goal that will promote the good of all members. Moreover, the ground rules will act as a catalyst for those individuals who are working alone when meeting goals and outcomes of a given project. 

References 

Colan, L. (2015). How to ignite your team’s accountability engine. Inc . Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/lee-colan/how-to-ignite-your-team-s-accountability-engine.html 

Stuart, A. (2014). Ground rules for a high performing team . Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2014—North America, Phoenix, AZ. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. 

Schwarz, R. (n.d.). Ground rules for effective teams (4 th ed.). Retrieved from http://www.mountainrootsfoodproject.org/Document_Archive_files/Ground_Rules_for_Effective_Teams_Fourth_Edition-1.pdf 

Wysocki, R. K. (2011). Effective project management: Traditional, agile, extreme (5 th ed.). Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons.