Organisations are increasingly turning to dynamic teams, characterised by their transient nature and frequent changes in team composition over time. This approach enhances organisational agility, allowing flexible scheduling and strategically allocating expertise to address emerging and evolving challenges. However, this flexibility often comes with its challenges, as it can hinder on-the-job learning and reduce overall team efficiency, hinting at possible unseen costs to individuals, teams, and their clients or customers.

Anna Mayo, an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College, highlighted the prevalence of dynamic teams across various sectors, particularly in medical environments. She noted that, for example, in teaching hospitals, physician teams may consist of an attending physician and trainees for short periods—potentially just a shift, a day, or a week. Within these brief periods, teams interact with a changing roster of other healthcare professionals, such as nurses, to deliver patient care.

In a recent study spearheaded by Mayo and her colleagues, the research aimed to explore how dynamic teams could facilitate learning and enhance productivity within a hospital setting. The study was conducted between 2017 and 2018 at a significant academic children’s hospital and involved 91 physician teams in the general paediatric inpatient unit. Two hundred twenty-two physician trainees collaborated with 21 attending physicians in dynamic teams to provide patient care. The research demonstrated that short, targeted interventions at the start of the teams’ collaboration significantly improved coordination within the team and with external roles like nursing staff. This enhanced coordination correlated with higher levels of learning among medical trainees and was directly linked to increased productivity, notably reflected in reduced patient hospital stays.

The research, a collaborative effort between Carnegie Mellon University, Children’s National Hospital, and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, was published in Organization Science. It methodically assigned physician teams to start their week with one of two interventions. The first intervention focused on internal coordination of tasks and roles within the physician team, while the second concentrated on enhancing coordination with external contributors, such as nurses, pharmacists, and social workers. A control group received no initial intervention. The study’s findings revealed that interventions aimed at internal roles, teamwork, or external collaboration notably improved the corresponding coordination area.

The results showed a clear association between external coordination and team efficiency, evidenced by the rate of patient discharges in the mornings. Similarly, robust internal coordination was closely linked to substantial individual learning outcomes, which were highest when teams excelled in internal and external coordination. This learning significantly reduced patient stays, suggesting a potent synergy between learning and team productivity.

Teams that participated in the internally focused intervention were more likely to achieve high internal and external coordination levels, leading to the observed enhanced learning and productivity outcomes. Anita Williams Woolley, a professor of organisational behaviour at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and co-author of the study, emphasised the crucial causal impact of directed attention in dynamic teams. She pointed out that despite significant investment in new technologies to aid team coordination, the study underscores the effectiveness of straightforward, low-cost interventions rooted in basic human attention processes.

Mayo concluded that the findings counter the notion that trainee learning might detract from patient care. Instead, the study illustrates that educational and care objectives can be achieved concurrently and outlines an effective strategy to accomplish this synergy. This insight clarifies team productivity dynamics in high-stakes environments and provides a blueprint for leveraging human-focused interventions to enhance learning and operational efficiency in dynamic team settings.

More information: Anna Mayo et al, Coordination in Dynamic Teams: Investigating a Learning–Productivity Trade-Off, Organization Science. DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2022.16729

Journal information: Organization Science Provided by Carnegie Mellon University