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Defining Team Standards

(This is one of a series of articles explaining a Team Performance Management System)

Performance Management System Part 1

In this (team) performance management system there are two main types of measures to be used: external(results) and internal(behaviours)

Measures that are externally oriented, and quantify the team results, involve assessing the performance of the team, the output it is producing or the contribution it is making to the business. Examples of these might be:

• Sales revenue achieved (sales team)
  
  
• League position (sports team)
  
  
• Recovery rate (health team)

Measures that are internally oriented, and quantify the team behaviours, involve assessing the means used to achieve the end results, or the way in which the team goes about it's business.

Such measures do not include individual activities - which would be subject to individual performance management processes - but activities that are and can only be undertaken by the team or a sub-set of the team collectively.

Examples of these collective behaviours might be:

• The number of timely cross-selling opportunities passed between salespeople (sales team)
  
  
• The number of successful passes made between players (sports team)
  
  
• The time spent in meetings to handover up to date information from one shift of nurses to another (health team)

Team standards for measurement should be defined and agreed at the start of the Team Performance Management process. Where the nature of the team's work remains the same over time, these standards may not need to be revised. However, if what the team is being expected to do changes (eg: due to a reorganisation, or as a result of rapid business growth) the team may need to revisit these standards and update them if not appropriate.

Whilst the definition of team standards need only be done once, the measurement of the team's performance using those standards should be repeated on a regular basis.

The next article in this online course will consider methods for internal measurement, ie the team behaviours.

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