Escaping the quicksand and getting back on the trail of team projects

Working in a team environment can be either an efficient and productive means of completing projects or a nightmare where the project never seems to end. Most of us have been a part of projects where we felt that "if we were able to do this by ourselves, it would have been finished a long time ago." It feels as if the project continues to go on and on; people are always changing their minds as to what it is the team is supposed to do, or some members of the team never seem to do their share of the workload. Sometimes we appear to be part of a "team", but in actuality, we are just part of an unorganized group of people who have no guidance as to what they are supposed to be accomplishing, or don't know if they are really doing what they were asked to do. Sometimes projects never seem to end - mainly because the team doesn't know how to end it.At ASU West, our IT department has incorporated what is known as the Seven-Step Continuous Improvement Model to help guide our project teams from start to finish. This process was shared with ASU from Oregon State University, and has become a great stabilizing force in improving our IT department's ability to work effectively in a team environment and finish projects more efficiently than before. We now have clear starting points, milestones along the way, and a clear ending point to each project.This paper will outline and demonstrate each of the seven steps in our process, share the documentation that we have developed for our internal use, and give examples of how this process is working in our environment. What this paper does not do is talk about team member dynamics, specific roles of each team member, etc. This presentation will focus specifically on the process.