"A terrific book! It makes a tremAndous contribution by moving forward the state of the art in organization design."

--David A. Nadler, chairman, Delta Consulting Group Inc.

"In an era when competitive forces demand that corporations move toward a team-based organization, this book is must reading for executives. Based on careful research, it provides the best and most comprehensive road map I have seen for designing and implementing the paradigm shift companies must make to survive and prosper in the decades ahead."

--Michael Beer, professor of business administration, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University

"This book is enormously important and timely. It is a scholarly, yet highly practical, guide to the future design of the 21st century organization--where organizations will be predominantly team-based and designed for high performance knowledge management."

--Stuart S. Winby, director, Product Processes Change Management, Hewlett-Packard Company

Publisher's Web Site, January, 2004

Designing Team-Based Organizations breaks new ground in tackling the organizational design issues related to the implementation of teams, with a specific focus on the new designs required to support the knowledge-work components of organizations. The authors offer a field-tested design framework to help managers, consultants, human resource specialists, and students of organization design understand and develop structures and systems necessary to support the strategic deployment of teams. Drawing on over fifteen years of research and consulting with such companies as Honeywell, Hewlett Packard, Pacific Bell, General Mills, Pratt and Whitney, Pfizer, and Texas Instruments, they present a detailed, five-step design process for creating new organization designs that empower teams so that they make a real difference.

This book presents a grounded framework to guide the design of the team-based organization. It provides theory and concepts to underpin the design, describes and gives case examples illustrating the five steps of the design process, and outlines key issues such as changing roles, empowerment, and the transition process.

ORGANIZATIONS AND TEAMS.

Designing Organizations for Knowledge Work.
Exploring the Contours of a Team-Based Organization.

THE DESIGN SEQUENCE.

Step One: Identifying Work Teams.
Step Two: Specifying Integration Needs.
Step Three: Clarifying Management Structure and Roles.
Step Four: Designing Integration Processes.
Step Five: Managing Performance.

IMPLEMENTATION CONCERNS.

Identifying New Responsibilities and Skills.
Defining Empowerment for the Team Environment.
Developing Organizational Support Systems.
Making the Transition to Team-Based Design.
Facing the Challenges Ahead.