"We are looking for some teambuilding training..."
I am sure many of the members of this forum get this request on an almost daily basis. What kind's of probing questions have you used to identify the client's need and ensure that the program was approriate. Was it a standard needs analysis or something more specific?
Thanks

Hi -- I would suggest that one should address this the same way one should always address a request that assumes a solution without the analysis.

Basic identification of the gap:

What is the team currently doing that they shouldn't be doing?
What should they be doing that they are not?
If they don't stop doing things they're doing now, what will happen?

Then you need to analyze what's causing the gap. Is it personality clashes? Lack of management/leadership? Lack of skill in a particular job? Lack of cooperation? Lack of necessary tools and resources to get stuff done? etc...

Then you need to look at what you found... is anything really/truly a skill/knowledge issue? Most of the time, performance problems are not a training issue, and even if there is a skill/knowledge gap, it's rarely ONLY that.

Pick up Performance Consulting by Robinson and Robinson -- it has the entire flow, job aids and the like of how to truly pinpoint and analyze performance gaps and propose the right solutions (instead of just taking orders for this, that and the other kind of training).

If you have a good enough relationship with the stakeholder making the request, you can always start with the most direct question: "What analysis led you to this solution?"

As a related point of interest, National Public Radio has an on-going segment with a gentleman who specializes in this kind of thing and in one of the first broadcasts, he talks about why most "teambuilding" activities really don't do any good at all. You can find the stuff on the NPR web site.

My preference isn't for training at all. The best way to build a team is to provide coaching/process ads while they are actually working on a real project-issue...etc.

In time the organization becomes filled with people who have either led or been a member of one of these teams. The skill set and the mind set begin to spread across the enterprise.

This post brings to mind all the experiential stuff that is thrown around and sold as teambuilding - for example, the team adventure stuff, swinging from ropes, drum beating sessions, etc.

How can these activities be sold to organizations? What possible analysis would lead one to think these things would be a solution to a particular performance gap? Surely these exercises exist mainly to serve the order takers only - and there must be a lot of order takers for this stuff to survive.

I agree with the comments above. I'd also add that 'teambuilding' can be a get out clause for managers that don't have the skills to lead.

Any teambuilding intervention should look closely at the leadership first and work downwards.