If your team improvement efforts are not living up to expectations, this checklist may tell you why.

• Clear Expectations: Do team members understand why the team was created and understand its expected outcomes?
• Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team and how the team will help the organisation achieve business goals?
• Commitment: Do team members feel their mission is important and wish to participate?
• Competence: Does the team believe its members have appropriate knowledge, skill, and capability?
• Charter: Has the team developed its own mission, vision, and strategies to articulate its goals?
• Control: Is the team sufficiently employed to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? Does it have clear boundaries?
• Collaboration: Do members understand how to cooperate to accomplish their charter?
• Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Do they have the necessary input and a method for receiving honest performance feedback?
• Creative Innovation: Is the organisation really interested in change? Does it value and reward creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas?
• Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements?
• Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership that assists the group to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resources been allocated?
• Cultural Change: Does the business recognize that a team-based, collaborative, empowered culture is different from the traditional, hierarchical organisation it may currently experience?