The Nine Attributes

What are the attributes, characteristics, and tell-tale signs of successful teams, teamwork, and projects? This is an age-old question that dates back to the beginning of time and the formation of human civilization itself. Roman infantry tactics were infamous for their well-balanced blend of flexibility and structure. However, they were often helpless at the hands of faster-moving Persian archers who could cause great harm from a distance without falling victim to Roman short swords in hand-to-hand combat. More recently, the attributes of effective teams have been a question of Western research since at least the 1950s, when the topic of empowerment, autonomy, and small-size emerged to thwart the practice of top-down autocratic control originating from Frederick Taylor's "Principles of Scientific Management" (circa 1900), which sharply focused on division-of-labor (i.e., the ruling class "thinks" and the working class "blindly" follows their orders with their physical strength and abilities, while "rewarding them with a plum"). Combined with concepts of brainstorming and quality improvement, these led to highly-structured groups, such as tiger teams, code inspection teams, quality circles, concurrent teams, and integrated product teams. One of the theories that grew out of the 1950s was concept of SYNERGY (i.e., the notion that small, highly-structured teams with rigid rules could perform at higher levels than individuals acting alone—Often, called the "Ghost Inspector" in the 1980s).