MTM (Multiple Team Memberships) @ EggHarbor Cafe
Benefits of multi-teaming
- Solving complex problems requires the collaboration of experts in multiple disciplines, being assigned across a few projects at a time optimises the use of worker's time and expertise when there isn't a singular task, project, or team that requires 100% of their time.
- Market competitiveness plus technology enabling the ability to track the downtime of workers assigned to projects and initiatives, has changed the way managing human resources can be facilitated.
- Multi-disciplined, cross-functional and multi-organizational teams enable diversified knowledge transfer, collaboration and the dissemination of best practices and learning across organizations that stimulate innovation quality and efficiency.
- The importance of operating models and organizations focused around team and project based work, and the rise of freelancers as part of the gig economy, encourage the use of multi-teaming.
Challenges of multi-teaming
Temporal misalignment: occurs when teams share members but are out of sync with the frequency and timing of meetings and working sessions, including associated work effort to meet deadlines, to the extent of time. The Overcommitted Organization describes the effects of juggling conflicting demands and priorities for members of multiple teams frequently experience.
- Increasing the number of members shared by different teams, also increases coordination and overhead costs, reducing the productivity of MTM.
- As the ratio of shared team members increases so too do conflicting demands and priorities, projects more frequently missing out on requisite work effort, knowledge and expertise for activities, reducing the quality and capability benefits of MTM.
The Overcommitted Organization
- Weakened relationships and coherance within teams and projects, if time isn't spent on personal interactions that develop trust and familiarity, and enable new members to understand every team's unique context.
- Stress associated with over committed employees, who have to push back capacity issues to multiple team managers and/or work long hours.
- Over committed employees can also create tension about scarce and shared human resources.
- Over committed employees at best manage to do what they have to do, but don't have the time to share ideas and knowledge.
- Employees may feel commoditized, weakening their identification with their employer. Feeling as if there work contribution across a wider range has less impact or relevance.
Context switching is when individuals have to shift between two or more team contexts, the challenge being the frequency workers are required to do so and also the degree of difference in team contexts. Are there scheduled times? Is it without notice?
- Increased time required for individuals to refocus, catch-up, reallocate and change tools and roles between different teams and associated work, reduces the MTM productivity benefits of the distribution of best practices and optimisation of resource management.
- Increased scale and/or disparity of information received by individuals reduces time to process, incubate, reflect and integrate new information, limiting the MTM learning and knowledge transfer benefits.
How to know when multiple team memberships is too much?
Understanding whether employees are overcommitted due to multiteaming and the performance of individuals, teams and the organization are being eroded, relies on the organization actively measuring and understanding whether their employee's experience aligns with those of high performing teams.
Google's Project Aristotle recent extensive study of teams found that the most important characteristic for successful teams is psychological safety, a setting "in which everyone is safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones so employees can let down their guard." High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety.
Project Aristotle also highlighted the importance of team members getting things done on time and meeting expectations, also having structure and clarity.
As The Overcommitted Organization concludes, successful multi-teaming require a significant investment of time and resources to get it right. Time for teams and new members to develop trust based relationships. Time for individuals and teams to think, reflect, absorb and learn from a diversity of information and knowledge. Time for individuals to meet the obligations of all of their teams, and resources that enable this through coordination and navigation of competing priorities and risks associated with multi-teaming.
