Missouri Team Process Standards

As more organizations move toward empowering teams to achieve organizational and community improvement goals, it is important to do so with enhanced performance and efficiency. To do just this, many teams have looked to the Missouri Team Process Standards (MTPS) for guidance.

The MTPS were established to encourage organizations to use a structured, proven framework to enhance desired improvements in operations, performance and customer satisfaction.

TEAM STANDARDS
The MTPS is based on a set of Team Standards that address six major components of any team process:

• Selecting the Opportunity
• Establishing and Developing the Team
• Measuring and Analyzing the Current Situation
• Developing Improvements
• Implementing Improvements
• Monitoring Progress
  
  

ROLE MODEL ATTRIBUTES
Teams that stand out from the rest have many commonalties. Below is a description, listed by Team Standard, of those activities that most greatly contribute successful team processes.

• STANDARD 1: SELECTING THE OPPORTUNITY
  The organization has a systematic methodology for determining whether the use of a team is appropriate for an opportunity, and that the opportunity is of importance, relative to other opportunities, to the accomplishment of organizational objectives. When the decision has been made to form a team, the team is provided specific guidance that fully defines what is to be accomplished, when, with what resources, within what boundaries, and for whom.
• STANDARD 2: ESTABLISHING AND DEVELOPING THE TEAM
   The process for determining team composition assures that the "right" mix of team members is established to have the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience, and compatibility to accomplish the team tasks. When the team composition has been determined, clear definition of how the team is going to work is established, including who is going to do what.
• STANDARD 3: MEASURING AND ANALYZING THE CURRENT SITUATION
  Initially, the team develops what they are going to do by thorough analysis of the situation in order to develop a complete understanding of their opportunity. Based on the results of this analysis, the team builds a solid approach to addressing the opportunity that will be fact-based and systematic.
• STANDARD 4: DEVELOPING IMPROVEMENTS
  Using facts and data, the team develops multiple alternatives or solutions that address the accomplishment of its objectives. There is frequent interaction with key stakeholders in developing the alternatives, as well as data and information garnered from other organizations. The alternatives or solutions are analyzed to determine the most appropriate and feasible approach to accomplishing the set objectives.
• STANDARD 5: IMPLEMENTING IMPROVEMENTS
  Once the preferred alternative or solution has been selected, the team uses a systematic approach for how that solution will be implemented, including how key stakeholder buy-in and agreement will be attained. During implementation, appropriate measures and milestones are established to enable assessment of whether the approach is meeting team objectives.
• STANDARD 6: MONITORING PROGRESS
  If results are provided, they achieve all objectives, and many of them are better than expectations. If results are not provided, the team demonstrates that they are clearly on track to not only achieve all objectives, but to exceed many of them. In both cases, the teams are a clear benefit to accomplishing organizational objectives. Further, the change is being clearly communicated to all stakeholders, and next steps have been well-defined.

Any team that implements and follows the concepts embodied in the MTPS should realize the benefits of greater performance and more productive teamwork. To view/download the Missouri Team Process Standards, click here. For additional information about the Team Standards, or training on the Standards e-mail us or contact us by phone at (573) 526-1726.

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