Making the Team: A Guide for Managers

The Team Performance Equation

Now that we have discussed the four critical measures of team performance and the three key ingredients for team success, we can put all these factors together in a single equation for the manager to use when assessing team performance (Steiner, 1972):

AP = PP + S − T

Where AP = Actual Productivity;

PP = Potential Productivity;

S = Synergy;

T = Performance Threats.

The actual productivity of a team is a function of three key factors: The potential productivity of the team, synergy, and threats. The first factor, the potential productivity of a team, depends on three subfactors: Task demands, the resources available to the team, and the team process.

Task demands are the requirements imposed on the team by the task ...