| In a world full of change, an organization's ability to generate novel responses to novel problems becomes extremely important. One tool commonly used for this purpose is the ad hoc team--a group brought together specifically to do a special project in a limited time period. Such terms must manage several demands simultaneously. In order to generate an acceptable product, team members must find appropriate ways to work together, deal with the expectations of people outside the team (e.g. managers, clients, constituencies), and attend to deadlines. This research uses case analyses of eight naturally-occurring groups to determine how groups deal with these multiple agendas through the life span.; The findings highlight two main aspects of group development. The first concerns mechanisms of inertia and change across time. Each group began with a distinctive approach toward its work--and maintained that approach until almost half-way through the total calendar time alotted to its project. At their calendar mid-points, groups experienced vivid transitions--they made paradigmatic shifts in approach that enabled them to capitalize on the gradual learning they had done, and make significant advances in their work. It appears that major developmental changes for such groups are stimulated by members' awareness of time and deadlines, not by the completion of any absolute amount of work or any specific developmental step.; The second facet concerns the ways groups carry out their work on creative tasks. The ease, speed, and styles with which groups worked together varied widely. Orderly decision-making was found to be far less important for groups' success than the amount and quality of member's collective learning. The findings suggest that it may be more fruitful to look for a logic of group work (i.e., at how a group defines its overall task, breaks it into parts, and configures those parts) than for a universal sequence of group work activities. |
