As Toxic War Rooms — a recent research paper from Seattle Pacific University — points out, War Rooms may not work as well as advertised, if at all.
Start with Part 1 of this blog: War Rooms for IT - More Harm Than Good?
So what’s the alternative? Is it even possible to build teams that can work together effectively to solve problems in highly charged, ever changing environments? According to the research, the answer is yes. Here’s how:
1. Give IT teams the ability to see the big picture
Individuals need to understand the whole system and their own place in it. This is called a "shared mental model". To get them out of their silos, they need a common monitoring system that shows how the individual elements of the whole interact with one another.
2. Provide ongoing feedback
If everyone is seeing the same data, they're in a better position to see how their own actions affect both the overall system as well as subsystems. Ongoing, shared feedback is essential to building teams that are more agile, self-adaptive and continuously improve their performance.
3. Establish trust
It is important to ensure that everyone understands and shares the same mission, vision and goals. Every group has conflict, but having an effective mechanism for resolving that conflict will have a direct impact on problem solving. Tools like the shared mental model and ongoing feedback with commonly accepted data make it easier for groups to get past personality conflicts and focus on the task at hand.
4. Reward team performance
By establishing a reward system that is based on the performance of the entire system, rather than individual domains and responsibilities, can promote better team collaboration. Metrics and diagnostic tools that focus on the entire system can reinforce the shared vision and shared responsibility for the only thing really matters: the customer experience.
Belinda Yung-Rubke is Director of Field Marketing for Fluke Networks.
Related Links:
Click here to read the full paper from Seattle Pacific University
Click here to read Part 1 of this blog: War Rooms for IT - More Harm Than Good?
