ASQ CQA – 3 Auditor Competencies Part 5

9. 3F2 Team Facilitation

In the topic of team dynamics. Previously we talked about team building. Now coming to the second topic, which is team Facilitation. Let us understand what is facilitation? Facilitation means to make it easy and what does Facilitator do? Facilitators make things easy for the audit team. So that means the facilitator coaches or helps the team to achieve the objective, the outcome which this team is expected to achieve. And now when it comes to team Facilitation, here we are talking about long term success of the audit team. In regards to Facilitation, let’s look at few important things here. The role of Facilitator is to provide coaching and guidance to the audit teams.

And if there are clashes between the members, then the role of a Facilitator will be to diffuse those clashes between members. Let’s say if you do audit and then there is a disagreement, disagreement between auditors, or disagreement between the audit team leader and a particular auditor, whether this particular thing should be a nonconformity, whether this should not be, whether we should have covered that area, rather than putting this much time on this area.

There could be disagreement between the team members, and that’s where Facilitator is supposed to help or diffuse that tension or the clash between these members. And then the Facilitator is supposed to get input from all the team members. So whatever audit was done, whatever lessons were learned in that, whatever good or bad happened, facilitator takes those inputs and helps the team in improving their performance over long term. Another important thing is cultivating objectivity in the theme.

So rather than taking things personally, rather than taking decisions on the basis of gut feeling, here the role of a Facilitator is to put objectivity or put facts based decision making in the audit team. So that whatever decisions, whatever actions this team is taking, this team is taking those actions based on facts rather than the gut feeling or rather than just the opinion of one person or maybe the lead auditor. So this is something which needs to be cultivated in the audit team, so that whatever audits they perform in future are better. And then these audits are able to achieve the objective what they were supposed to do. The role of a Facilitator is to oversee the progress of the audit teams and also to encourage diverse viewpoints.

Different people might have different viewpoints, so that also is encouraged. Not everyone is expected to think in the same way. And then if there is any disagreement agreement, then the facilitator helps in building consensus between the audit team members. So these are some of the roles of Facilitator and who is Facilitator? Facilitator could be the department manager, quality manager, whosoever make sure that the audit team is performing to its best and achieving the objective. So this was about the team Facilitation.

10. 3F3 Stages of Team Development

Now coming to the last topic in team dynamics, which is stages of team development. Here we will be talking about Tuckman’s stages of team development. So Tuckman was the one who gave this model of team development. Any team goes through a number of stages. So when you have a team team, it goes through five stages. So if you look at the CQA body of knowledge there you will see just four of these in the list of stages forming, storming, norming and performing is listed in the CQA body of knowledge. But the fifth stage is adjourning. So let’s talk about these five stages of team development. The forming is the stage when the team is formed. So this is the stage when you pick number of people, put them together and say that now you are the team. This team could be the audit team, this could be the process improvement team, this could be the project execution team. Whatever team we are talking about. Every team goes through these five stages.

So in forming, we form the team where people are put together. Then comes the storming stage. The storming stage is where everyone fights in the team for his or her place in the team, everyone challenges each other. So Storming is the stage where you will see that the team work is difficult, that it’s not possible to work as a team. So that’s what you will get the feeling when you reach the storming stage. Then comes the norming stage.

The norming stage is where you form the norm that this is how we will be doing. So you make some rules. During the norming stage, you select your leader and you start working as a team. Now, because all those disagreements which were in the Storming stage have been settled. Now, after norming stage, the next stage is performing. The performing stage is the one where the team works at its best. So this is the stage where the team works with the high performance, with a high efficiency. That’s where most of the work is getting done in the performing stage. And then adjoining stage is where the team breaks.

So these are the five stages every team passes through. Let’s look at each of these stages in slight more detail in next five slides, starting with forming. So, as I earlier told, forming is a stage when team members come together first time, so they meet, they interact with each other. This is the first time when they are working as a team member. Here they depend on leader.

So everyone is confused what to do, what not to do. So if there is an assigned leader for the team, then the role of leader will be to direct everyone. Because everyone is so confused, team has been formed, what to do, how to proceed, that needs to be led by the leader. And at this stage, avoid any controversy or serious topic. Because team has just formed, they have not built faith in each other. And here the feedback will also be minimum because people will keep all the good or bad with them, only they don’t want to share because at this stage they might not believe each other.

So this is the first stage of team development which is forming, coming to the second stage of team development which is Storming. In Storming now people challenge each other and now the people get a feeling that team work is not easy because everyone has their own interest. Those interests are above the team. That’s what the team will feel. So here the views are strong. They challenge each other’s idea because here everyone wants to make his or her place in the team. So the team will challenge the leadership, team will challenge the authority or position. Why you should be leader of the team, what’s the plan? How we will go about this?

The tough questions will be asked in this stage. Then some member will even withdraw that no, this is not going to work, so I don’t want to be part of this team. So some people will have that sort of idea as well. There will be lack of collaboration and then everyone will be competing for control and then there will be a high level of reacting and defending. So this is a rough stage in team development. You don’t want to send your team, a newly formed team which is in a Storming stage, to go and do an audit. Because here people really don’t know each other, they are challenging each other. So you don’t want to put that team to do an audit. But then every team goes through this stage. So this is the Storming stage.

The next stage here is norming. So when everyone has expressed their ideas, they have challenged. Now slowly they reach a stage where they start listening to each other. Here the leader becomes the facilitator and team slowly starts behaving like a team.

They start working in a systematical way and then slowly people change their preconceived views, the views which they have, the challenges which they were putting. Now slowly they change that and then they are ready to adopt other person idea as well. And then each member actively participate as a theme. And then any conflict or any challenge is seen as the mutual problem. Rather than saying that this is because of you, this is happening, we shouldn’t have done this. So now everything, whatever is going, good or bad, they take that conflict or problem as a mutual problem.

And then there is an open exchange of ideas. So now team is slowly working towards the objective in the norming stage where things are slowly becoming normal the way it should be for the team. Then comes the stage which is the performing. Performing is the stage when the team works at its best. Now all the disagreements have been sorted out and the team has already agreed on the way the team will be working and they have agreed on the leadership. So everything is working fine. In the performing stage, this is a highly creative stage where everyone contributes to the success of the team. There is openness, there is a trust amongst the team members.

They slowly form a bond. A bond between the members actually help in achieving the theme objective. So this is the high achievement stage of the theme. So this is the stage where team should be when they go out and do an audit. As a team, the team should have been together for some time, where they have gone through all those disagreements, where they have sorted out disagreements, where they have started working as a cohesive and an integrated team.

So this is the performing stage. At the performing stage, the role of leader changes to delegate. Now the team is working fine, then the leader doesn’t need to direct, leader doesn’t need to facilitate. Leader just delegates thing to the team members. Because everyone is working towards the common success of the team. The fifth stage is adjoining. Adjoining is when the team breaks down. So let’s say if this team was formed for a specific purpose, then only you have adjoining stage.

So let’s say if you have a team of auditors which are supposed to work continuously forever, and their only role is to do audit day in, day out, and this team will be working together for a long time, then probably this stage will not come. Adjoining stage is more important when the team is formed for a specific purpose and once that specific objective is achieved, then the team will be adjoin. So this may or may not apply in the case of audit team.

So these are five stages of team development. So as a team leader, understanding the stage in which your team is important because based on that, you can change your leadership style. In the topic of auditor competencies, which was section three of CQA Body of knowledge, we have talked about all these topics. Auditor characteristics onsite audit, resource management, conflict resolution, communication and presentation techniques, interviewing techniques and teaching.