Team development
Clarifying, strengthening, and further developing collaboration
Teams change. New colleagues join, tasks shift, interfaces emerge, demands increase, or collaboration no longer works as well as before.
Team development creates space to jointly clarify what a team needs for its work and what specifically needs to change.
We don’t just look at the interactions within the team. Goals, roles, decisions, working methods, and framework conditions also influence how well a team can work together.
We support teams and their leaders in making relevant issues visible, bringing different perspectives together, and developing concrete changes for everyday work.
What does your team need right now?
What’s causing the problem? Bring your concerns to a no-obligation consultation. Together, we’ll explore what’s currently on your team’s mind, what the underlying issues are, and what the next sensible step might be.
Team development with different focuses
Not every development challenge a team faces is the same. The range of potential challenges is vast. We’ll highlight two topics as examples and explore them in more detail on separate pages.
High-performance teams:
When a team wants to systematically develop its collaboration and understand which conditions support sustainable performance, we take a closer look at the success factors of high-performing teams.
Executive teams:
Executive teams need to do more than just work well together. They need to address strategic issues jointly, make decisions, and take responsibility for the organization as a leadership team.
: When team development is useful
Team development isn’t only useful when conflicts escalate. It can also support teams in adapting to new demands or consciously developing good collaboration.
The team is changing
New team members, a new leader, growth, reorganization, or changing tasks call existing agreements into question.
Team development helps to redefine roles, expectations, and collaboration.
Cooperation costs too much energy
Voting processes become circular, conflicts resurface, or important issues are not addressed openly.
Together, the underlying patterns can be identified and the team can determine what changes to implement.
New requirements necessitate new forms of collaboration.
Strategy, customer requirements, or working conditions change, but existing routines are no longer adequate.
Team development helps the team adapt its collaboration to the new situation.
Things teams can work on together
Which topics are relevant depends on the specific starting point. Therefore, for us, team development doesn’t begin with a standard program.
common direction, sharpen
Teams need a shared understanding of their responsibilities and which goals and priorities are most important for their work.
When different perspectives exist side-by-side, misunderstandings and competing expectations quickly arise.
roles and responsibilities
Unclear responsibilities often lead to duplication of effort, gaps in communication, or unnecessary coordination.
Together, it can be clarified who contributes what, what responsibilities are associated with each contribution, and where interfaces need to be consciously designed.
Improve collaboration and coordination
Not every vote requires a meeting, and not every problem needs a new process.
Together, we’ll examine which routines actually help to share information, prepare decisions, and connect activities.
address tensions and conflicts
Conflicts can stem from personal differences. However, they often also reveal unresolved issues, unclear roles, or conflicting expectations.
Team development provides a framework for addressing such tensions and deriving concrete changes for collaboration.
align leadership and collaboration
How much guidance, decision-making authority, or support a team needs depends on the task and the situation.
Therefore, we involve the respective manager where their role, their decisions, or the framework they set are relevant to the team’s development.
embed reflection in everyday life
Collaboration is constantly evolving.
Teams become less dependent on external development impulses when they can regularly reflect together: What works? What is hindering us? What do we want to keep or change?
When an outside perspective helps
Team coaching is one possible form of team development. A coach guides the entire team in recognizing their own patterns, discussing differing perceptions, and developing new courses of action.
We explain how we support teams in such processes on our dedicated team coaching page.
Team development begins with the actual work.
A team doesn’t need to interrupt its operational work for development to occur.
We focus on the issues that are already relevant to the team: goals, decisions, roles, interfaces, current conflicts, or specific challenges of collaboration.
We combine process support with expert input and appropriate tools. The specific tools used depend on the issue at hand.
This way, development work and daily business are integrated, rather than creating two separate worlds.
How we shape team development;
understanding the initial situation together
We clarify the reasons for team development, what changes have already taken place, and how both the manager and the team perceive the situation.
We don’t rush into searching for a specific method. First, it’s essential to understand which development issue is truly relevant.
Working on the important questions
Depending on the initial situation, we work with the entire team, individual roles, or the manager.
Workshops, team coaching, facilitation, reflection formats, or diagnostic tools can fulfill different functions. Crucially, they support concrete change in collaboration.
Transferring development into everyday life
New agreements need to prove themselves in everyday work.
Therefore, we consider what the team wants to try, what constitutes progress, and when it makes sense to review experiences together and make adjustments.
A team can take its development into its own hands.
Not every team issue requires a major development process.
Our team assessment, “What Makes Teams Successful,” offers teams the opportunity to reflect on their collaboration in a structured way. Different perspectives become apparent, creating a basis for discussing relevant areas for improvement together. The assessment is based on the cidpartners model for high-performing teams and examines collaboration from a broader perspective.
What a viable target system must achieve
A framework alone does not guarantee effective management. What matters is how strategy, goals, coordination, responsibilities, and regular reflection are integrated.
Goals need a clear link to the strategy
A goal system provides little guidance if goals are primarily derived from existing tasks.
Therefore, we first clarify which strategic priorities the goal system should support.
A goal becomes strategically relevant when it is clear which priority it contributes to and what result it is intended to achieve.
This creates a link between strategy, goal system, and day-to-day operations.
Fewer priorities create more controllability
If every task is formulated as a goal, the goal system loses its focusing effect.
Goals should clearly show where attention and resources are primarily directed during a specific period.
This also includes deciding which topics do not currently receive additional priority. This creates focus without transferring the entire operational business into the goal system.
Alignment arises from aligning on goals and dependencies
Strategic goals cannot always be broken down completely from top to bottom.
Dependencies exist between business units, departments, functions, and teams. At the same time, relevant knowledge often arises closer to the market, with customers, or in day-to-day operations.
Therefore, we connect the strategic direction with relevant perspectives from across the organization.
Alignment occurs when different goals demonstrably contribute to shared strategic priorities and the dependencies between them are clarified.
The existing cidpartners OKR approach also operates with transparency, coordination, and a back-and-forth principle between different levels of the organization.
Measurability requires the right metrics
Not every readily available metric is helpful in managing strategic goals.
Metrics should reveal whether a relevant result is developing and whether core assumptions remain valid.
To achieve this, we differentiate between activities, results, and long-term impact. This makes it clear whether progress is being made or whether tasks are merely being completed.
Goal conflicts belong in the control process
Several goals can be individually valid yet still compete for the same resources.
A goal system should make such tensions visible. Which goals are interdependent? Where are the same resources needed? Which priority influences another?
Strategic management creates a framework in which such goal conflicts can be regularly assessed and priorities clarified as needed.
Control needs a rhythm
Goals lose their value if they are formulated and only revisited many months later.
Regular reviews reveal how results are developing, what obstacles are arising, and which assumptions should be re-evaluated.
The appropriate frequency depends on the framework and the organization. With OKRs, short goal cycles, regular alignment, and reflection are fundamental to the approach.
The goal system must be linked to existing processes
A new framework creates additional work if strategy, portfolio, budget, and target processes continue unchanged in parallel.
Therefore, we examine the interfaces: Which existing processes will remain? What can be combined? Where do duplicate decisions or contradictory routines arise?
This broader perspective is particularly relevant for cidpartners when it comes to OKRs. OKR Plus combines work on the target system with questions about strategy, leadership, collaboration, and change.
Rethinking team development
Rethinking target systems and control.
What makes teams successful.
Team Assessment: What Makes Teams Successful
Roles and role-based work
Team development at a glance
Frequently Asked Questions
What is team development?
Team development is the targeted improvement of a team’s collaboration.
This can involve addressing topics such as shared goals, roles, decision-making processes, coordination, conflicts, or the interaction with management.
The specific topics addressed depend on the team’s individual situation.
When is team development beneficial?
Team development can be beneficial when a team is newly formed, its composition or task changes, collaboration stalls, or new requirements necessitate different forms of collaboration.
Therefore, it doesn’t have to begin only when acute conflicts arise.
Does there have to be a problem for team development to be beneficial?
No.
Teams can also use team development to consciously expand existing strengths, prepare for new requirements, or regularly reflect on their collaboration.
The crucial factor is that there is a relevant development issue.
What is the difference between team development and team building?
Team building often refers to individual measures that strengthen getting to know one another, cohesion, or relationships within a team.
Team development is broader. It can additionally address goals, roles, working methods, decision-making processes, or conflicts, and can extend over a longer period.
What is the difference between team development and team coaching?
Team development describes the overarching development goal of a team. Team coaching is one possible way to work on this.
In team coaching, a coach guides the team in reflecting on its own patterns and developing solutions for specific collaboration issues.
Depending on the initial situation, workshops, facilitation, diagnostics, or other formats may be more suitable.
What role does leadership play in team development?
It depends on the specific development question.
Leaders influence a team’s goals, framework, responsibilities, and decision-making authority. If these topics are relevant, their role in the development process should be considered.
At the same time, the quality of collaboration doesn’t solely depend on the leader. Team development considers the entire team.
How does team development work?
There is no fixed standard procedure.
At the beginning, the team clarifies its objectives and identifies the relevant topics. From this, suitable interventions are developed and integrated into the team’s actual work.
After initial changes, the team reflects together on what is working and where further adjustments are needed.
How long does team development take?
It depends on the issue and the initial situation.
A specific question can be addressed in a single workshop. More profound changes in roles, collaboration, or conflict patterns often require several steps and cycles of reflection.
Therefore, we only determine the scope once the situation is sufficiently understood.
Can team development also take place virtually or in a hybrid format?
Yes.
Many development issues can be addressed virtually or in a hybrid format. The crucial factor is which formats suit the team, the topic, and the type of collaboration.
What distinguishes team development from high-performance teams?
Team development is the overarching framework for the further development of collaboration.
On the High-Performance Teams page, we delve deeper into the specific question of what conditions support teams in being both consistently high-performing and adaptable.
The underlying cidpartners guiding model considers productivity and adaptability, as well as the success factors of high-performing teams.
What is different about executive teams?
Executive teams, in addition to their own internal collaboration, share responsibility for leading and developing the organization.
This places particular emphasis on strategic alignment, joint decision-making, cross-functional responsibility, and the interplay of different leadership roles.
We discuss these requirements in more detail on the Executive Teams page.