“The core of our survey was based around three separate models of team effectiveness, each of which was derived from one of the three bestselling books on team effectiveness shown below.”
“The first model was built from J Richard Hackman’s Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. This book describes a model for enhancing team effectiveness based on five key enabling conditions that allow a team to function optimally, based on extensive research and validated management science.”
“It must be a REAL TEAM. The task must be appropriate for a team to work on; the members must be interdependent in task processes and goals; there must be clear boundaries in terms of who IS and who is NOT on the team; team members must have clear authority to manage their own work processes and take charge of their own tasks; there must be stable membership over time, with minimal turnover; and the team’s composition must be based on a combination of technical skills, teamwork skills, external connections, team size, functional and cultural diversity, and experience.”
“Compelling Direction. There must be a motivating goal or important objective that directs attention, energizes and sustains effort, and encourages development of new strategies.”
“Enabling Structure. Tasks, roles, and responsibilities must be clearly specified and designed for individual members.”
“Supportive Context. The team needs a shared belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks (“psychological safety”), which includes a deep level of team trust that leads to a willingness to regularly point out errors, admit mistakes, and warn of potential problems or risks.”
“Expert Coaching. The team needs access to different types of mentors outside the team boundaries helping members perform tasks more effectively.”
“These results are simply staggering. Every single question correlates significantly with game project outcomes.”
“project leaders would be well-advised to achieve clarity around the product vision, communicate it clearly to the team, and seek buy-in from all team members when beginning a new project”
“The second team effectiveness model was based on Patrick Lencioni’s famous management book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable”
“Absence of Trust. The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.”
“Fear of Conflict. The absence of trust and the desire to preserve artificial harmony stifle the occurrence of productive conflict on the team.”
“Lack of Commitment. The fear of conflict described above makes team members less willing to buy in wholeheartedly to the decisions that are made, or to make decisions that they can commit to.”
“Avoidance of Accountability. The factors above – especially the lack of commitment and fear of conflict – prevent team members from holding one another accountable.”
“Inattention to Results. Without accountability, team members ignore the actual outcomes of their efforts, and focus instead on individual goals and personal status at the expense of collective success.”
“these scores tell us that these five factors are roughly equal to Hackman’s model in terms of their correlations with game project outcomes.”
“teams with a clear vision don’t always succeed, but teams without a clear vision almost always fail.”
“you can’t guarantee success, but you can certainly guarantee failure.”
“The third and final team effectiveness model was based on Wagner & Harter’s book 12: The Elements of Great Managing, which is derived from aggregate Gallup data from 10 million employee and manager interviews.”
“These findings are somewhat more mixed than the Hackman and Lencioni models.”
“However, several of the other factors – especially 7, 8, 9, and 11 – showed remarkably strong correlations with project outcomes. Moreover, nearly all of these factors are fundamentally orthogonal to the factors in Hackman and Lencioni’s models.”
“Clearly, listening to team members’ opinions, having a connection with the mission of the company, a shared commitment to doing quality work, and regular, powerful, insightful feedback are a big part of what separates the best dev teams from the rest.”
“The very strong correlation of the 8th category – a connection with the mission of the company – is particularly noteworthy. The correlation of this category is the strongest in all of the Gallup questions, and it’s unique from the Hackman and Lencioni models.”
“our results show clearly that organizational values have a substantial impact on outcomes, and organizations that think deeply about their values, take them seriously, and carefully work to ingrain them into their culture seem to have a measurable advantage over those that do not.”
“most of what separates the most effective teams from the least effective is the careful and intentional cultivation of effective teamwork, and this has an absolutely overwhelming impact on a game project’s outcome.”
“The famed management theorist Peter Drucker was well-known for the quote, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.””
“This is generally interpreted to mean that as much as we may believe that our strategies – our business models, our technologies, our game designs, and so on – give us an edge, the lion’s share of an organization’s destiny, and its actual ability to fulfill its strategy, are determined by its culture.”
“Team trust and “psychological safety” lay the groundwork to allow team members to openly point out problems, admit mistakes, and warn of impending problems and take corrective action.”
“An embrace of creative conflict, a compelling direction that includes commitment to a clearly-defined shared vision, acceptance of accountability, the availability of the necessary enabling structure, the availability of expert coaching, a connection with the mission of the company, a belief that your opinions count and your colleagues are committed to doing quality work, and regular, powerful, insightful feedback all allow teams to work together more effectively.”
“It’s tempting to say that the secret sauce is teamwork – but this would be a trivialization of what is actually a far more subtle issue.”
“The actual secret sauce seems to be a culture that continually and deliberately cultivates and enables good teamwork, gives it all the support it needs to flourish, and carefully and diligently diagnoses it and fixes it when it begins to go astray.”