TEAM+TRANSITION+-+DISSOLUTION

// "Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes." // - Henry David Thoreau Inevitably, projects are completed, deals are done, and the time comes for a virtual team to transition. The dissolution process is an important, often overlooked part of the virtual team life-cycle. A final team debrief is one way to conclude a project team. However, a number of factors may prevent this critical contemplation from happening:
 * TOP REASONS WHY DEBRIEFS DON'T OCCUR**
 * High time pressure towards the project’s end (completion pressure, new tasks already wait for the dissolving team)
 * Insufficient willingness for learning from mis- takes of the persons involved
 * Missing communication of the experiences by the involved people due to ‘‘wrong modesty’’ (with positive experiences) or the fear of negative sanctions (in case of mistakes)
 * Lacking knowledge of debriefing methods. Underestimation of process complexity which a systematic derivation of experiences brings along
 * Lacking enforcement of the procedures in the project manuals
 * Missing integration of experience recording into project processes (Schindler & Eppler, 2003)

Whether you call it a Post-Mortem report, Lessons Learned, After Action Review, Project Review, or something completely different, it's important to debrief. There are any number of reasons why. Beginning with the human factor, you've spent considerable time and effort to create synergy across your team, and it's important to acknowledge everyone's efforts and reflect on the successes and failures experienced together. If there is no closure or follow up to archive findings after the project concludes, team members may feel that their knowledge is not valued, or that their work was unimportant (Knutson, 2001).
 * WHY DEBRIEF?**

Similar to the energy devoted to kicking off a project, an effort can be made to transition gracefully. Other teams can gain considerably just by understanding how the team structured itself, the norms put in place, who the major stakeholders were, where the obstacles presented themselves, etc...so it's essential that you document the findings of your debrief. Case studies identifying risks, mistakes, and key stakeholders are one way to do this. This becomes even more important if a you are transitioning to a team that will pick up where you leave off. A well-documented project plan and lessons learned will be very helpful to get them up to speed so that they can deftly jump in to answer questions after you're gone. Rich institutional knowledge and insights are lost if no formal closeout occurs. //**While your virtual team may only exist for the length of a project, the organization is there for the long haul, and the valuable learnings from a debrief can become part of an organization's learning history**//**.** And just think, what a pity it would be to not share all the blood, sweat, and tears! During the debrief, you can conduct a "lessons learned" discussion to capture key findings. There are different approaches to this, some more formalized than others. Depending on the nature of your virtual team, you may want to use these as rough guidelines and adapt accordingly to suit your team work style.
 * METHODS OF DEBRIEFING**

**//Table 1 Process-based methods to learn from experiences (adapted from Schindler & Eppler, 2003)//**
 * **Method** || **Project Review/Project Audit*** || **Post-Project Appraisal** || **After Action Review (AAR)** ||
 * **Time of execution** || After project completion or in the course of the project during individual project phases || Approximately two years after project completion || During work process ||
 * **Carried out by** || Moderators and auditor || External post-project appraisal unit (a manager and four assistants), project homework group || Facilitator ||
 * **Participants** || Project team and third parties that are involved into the project || Project team and third parties that are involved into the project || Project team ||
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">**Purpose** || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Status classification, early recognition of possible hazards, team-internal focus || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Learning from mistakes, knowledge transfer to third parties || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Learning from mistakes, knowledge transfer inside the team ||
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">**Benefits** || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Improvement of team discipline, prevention of weak points and validation of strategies || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Best practice generation for large-scale projects, improvement of forecasts and proposals || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Immediate reflection of the own doings to improve future actions ||
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">**Interaction mode** || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Face to face meetings || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Document analysis, face to-face-meetings || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Cooperative team meeting ||
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">**Codification** || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Partly in reports, usually no predefined circulation with knowledge transfer as a primary goal (excluding predefined distribution lists) || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Booklets as well as personalized || <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 20px;">Flip charts ||

*//Project Review/Audit is more commonly referred to as a "walkthrough"//
**// xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Key Success Factors in Debriefing Workshops //**
 * Regularly capture the most important project experiences directly after important milestones with the entire project team.
 * Have an external, neutral moderator of the debriefing workshop (not to be done by project managers or other team members).
 * Perform the lessons learned gathering graphically, e.g. collecting and structuring the project experi- ences along a time line (e.g. as a process map with mistakes, successes, insights etc.) and provide a workshop documentation in a poster format visible for all staff involved.
 * Ensure a collective, interactive evaluation and analysis of experiences made by individual team members.
 * Strive to gain a commitment in the sense of action consequences from the gathered insights. Consider possible forms of implementation and who should be responsible for them (Schindler & Eppler, 2003).

A case study to leave you with... xxxxx//xx// //Boeing compared the development processes of its 737 and 747 planes (models that had serious technical problems) to// //xxxxxxx// //those of its 707 and 727 (two profitable programs). It then compiled a booklet of lessons learned. Several members of the// //xxxxxxx// //learning team were later transferred to two start-up programs--the 757 and 767. They produced the most successful, error-free// //xxxxxxx// //launches in Boeing's history (Garvin, 2008).

Regardless of your industry or the deliverables your geographically dispersed team is responsible for, it's important to review, reflect, and learn from all of the experiences working together. Furthermore, document those learnings to transfer the knowledge and share broadly with those that will come after you. // x <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: #ffffff; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx** <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: #000080; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**//"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."// - Dr. Seuss**


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