Características de equipes multifuncionais eficazes : um estudo exploratório a partir de um caso de sucesso na busca de resultados empresariais

Abstract

Teams, in the contemporary world, have become the basic form of work. Companies realized that work teams are more flexible and reacts faster to changes than others permanents organizations forms. In the present moment, this flexibility may be a distinct marketing competition factor, manly in service business. The misunderstanding of working team concept makes organizations not succeed on the implementation of this form of work organization. The goal of this study is analyze the main characteristics that could be related to successful use of multifunctional teams work in implementing strategic plans. The first step done, in order to reach this goal, was to perform a theoretic study in order to select preliminaries characteristics that could be related to successful utilization of teams. The results obtained from the theoretic study were utilized as bases for an analytic study of a successful practical experiment involving a project that took place on a telecom service company. The analyses indicated some characteristics that could be, in advance, related to the success of a practical experiment. Than a research through the wide company was made involving samples of employees that had participated before in similar projects, in order to evaluate the importance of the characteristics previously selected. The characteristics chosen as more important to successful use of multifunctional work teams are: to check if the work proposed should really be done by a work team; existence of clearly defined parameters for final results evaluations of the work done by the work team; work teams personnel selected in accordance of the project's characteristics; to inform the personnel about the real importance of the project that will be performed by the team; the previous knowledge of areas and processes involved with the project; autonomy given to work team personnel in order to permit them to plan their job in the seeking for the proposed results; to settle measurable indicators in order to permit the tasks follow-up; sponsors' feed back in order to inform the team components about the impact of their job in the company performance. The employees that took part of the research considered the following characteristics/dimensions as minor importance: group integration via previous event in order to promote people involvement to the project's objectives; group integration via periodic informal events along the duration of the project; selection of the largest possible number of flexible and cooperative people for participating of the team work; external coordination of a leader in order to follow-up the tasks performance in accordance to the established program; diversity of opinions in between the team personnel about the way to perform the tasks needed to reach the objectives of the project. Because of the method adopted, the present study doesn't intend to propose conclusions beyond the interpretation of the data obtained from the specific research made. The sample shows a situation in a specific moment and is restrict to a specific company. But it can be adopted as a base for similar studies.