PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: A CRITICAL DILEMMA IN

TEAM-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

by
Walter O. Einstein, Ph.D.
&
Susanne G. Scott, Ph.D

both of
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: A CRITICAL DILEMMA IN TEAM-BASED
ORGANIZATIONS
Walter O. Einstein, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, weinstein@umassd.edu
Susanne G. Scott, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, sscott@umassd.edu

The pervasive use of teams in today's organizations makes effective employee performance appraisal
challenging. W.E. Deming and others argued that individual performance appraisal focuses attention where
it should not be in a team-structured organization - on the "I" rather than the "we." Yet, social loafing too
often results when people are not held accountable for their individual contribution to their team. Further,
many of the prescriptions offered on effective performance appraisal in team-structured organizations fail to
consider that different types of teams require different "teaming" behaviors and may require different
appraisal methods. In this article, we discuss why individual and team performance appraisal must be used
simultaneously to assure high levels of individual motivation. We also explore how performance
requirements and appraisal methods may vary depending on the complexity of the task that a team is
involved in and team membership dynamics. We conclude that goal-based appraisal systems at the
individual and team level provide highly effective motivational and developmental tools when they:(1)
actively involve employees, teams, and managers in the development of performance criteria; (2)assure
alignment of goals at one level of the organization with goals at the next higher level; (3) and are flexible
enough to be used with minor modifications across a wide variety of positions and across different types of
teams. Our analysis underscores the fact that the use of team-based structures increases rather than
diminishes the critical need for effective leadership in the design and implementation of performance
appraisal and reward systems.
INTRODUCTION
Performance appraisal has been used in
American industry throughout most of the 20 th
century as a tool for evaluating and documenting
employee performance against standards as a
means of control, and providing constructive
feedback to employees in the interest of
enhancing their development. Successful
organizations devote significant energy and
resources to the design and implementation of
their employee performance appraisal system as
performance appraisal, when used in
conjunction with other high performance work
practices, leads to increased employee
productivity, reduced employee turnover, and
improved overall firm performance and market
value [1].
Traditionally, employee performance
appraisal has been focused on evaluating
behaviors leading to individual task attainment.
This made perfect sense (and still does) when
work was broken down into small constituent
parts, delegated out to specific individuals for
accomplishment, and one person’s task
performance was not directly dependent on
another’s. However, as tasks in organizations
have become increasingly complex and
interdependent, organizations have restructured
so that teams rather than individuals are now
their primary performance unit. In many (if not
most) organizations, it is now unacceptable for
an employee simply to sit at her work station
diligently processing work with little regard to
what others are doing around her—now she
must be jointly and individually accountable for
the processes, the quality, and the quantity of
the work produced by her work team [2]
The use of teams continues to proliferate on
shop floors, among technical professionals and
white-collar workers, and in the executive suites
of major corporations. There is a growing
consensus that effective teams provide a
number of benefits to organizations [3]. These
include:

increased employee motivation through
the empowerment of self-managed work
teams as members assume tasks
previously performed by managers.

increased coordination among many
departments and closer coupling of
functions through cross-functional teams
as members bring their different
perspectives to bear on organizational
problems.

increased flexibility in the utilization of
human resources through deployment of
experts and professionals to project
teams.

decreased time to market for new
products and services.
Despite their prevalence and reported
benefits, the implementation of team-based
organizational structures has not been easy, and
the literature offers numerous examples of
ineffective teams in organizations [4], [5], [6], [7].
Many organizations have discovered that
collaborative work is far more difficult in practice
than in theory, particularly in more individualist
western societies such as that found in the
United States. Despite the pervasiveness of
teams, the question of how to adequately
appraise performance in team-based
organizational structures remains particularly
problematic.
In this article, we first discuss why both
individual appraisal and team appraisal are
critical as motivational tools in team-based
structures; second, we describe a goal-based
method of performance appraisal which is well-
suited for the appraisal of teams and team
member performance; and finally, we consider
how performance criteria and appraisal methods
vary with the complexity of the task that teams
are engaged in and with the stability of team
membership dynamics. Our underlying premise
is straight-forward—goal-setting, performance
feedback, and reward systems can undermine
or support team effort. They are seldom neutral
in effect, and they require strong organizational
leadership if the benefits of teams are to be
realized.
APPRAISING THE TEAM OR APPRAISING
THE TEAM MEMBERS?
Who gets appraised and rewarded—the
individual members or the team—has been one
of the more contentious issues in team-based
organizations. Traditionally, performance
appraisal systems were designed to reward
behaviors attending individual task attainment to
the exclusion of behaviors that nurture, support,
and enhance a team as a performance unit.
Largely in reaction to this, no less an authority
than W.E. Deming advocated that individual
performance appraisal be discontinued
completely in total quality management
environments [8], [9]. Deming argued that
individual performance deficits are typically
caused by up-stream system errors and
malfunctions rather than by a lack of individual
effort or incompetence, making performance
appraisal inherently unfair. Further, according to
Deming, individual rewards focus attention on
self-interest rather than on the pursuit of system
goals. Deming’s focus on process and systems
provided a much-needed wake-up call to
American industry, but his perspective on
performance appraisal largely ignores the fact
that people do vary in the amount of effort and
capability they apply to their work. The
exclusive use of team appraisal systems can be
problematic in that they may fail to adequately
motivate individual team members.
There is ample evidence that social loafing
—a conscious or non-conscious tendency to
shirk by withholding effort toward group goals
while sharing in rewards—occurs more often
when group members believe that their
individual contribution (or lack thereof) cannot be
identified or assessed [10], [11]. Unfortunately,
this tendency is even stronger in individualistic
societies such as the United States than it is in
more collectivist societies such as those found in
many Asian countries [12], [13]. While
individualism brings with it a high need for
personal achievement and reward, it also results
in a greater reluctance to embrace teamwork,
and greater social loafing when individual
contribution is not assessed. Even more
problematic, if a team must support a freeloader
with no recourse through a formal appraisal
system, other team members often withdraw
effort [13]. Social loafing can spread among
team members like a particularly virulent flu,
poisoning the work climate. Motivating
everyone’s effort in team-based organizations
relies on the adequate assessment of team
contribution to unit and organizational
performance and the identification and
assessment of individual contribution to team
performance.
GOAL-BASED PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
IN TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Traditionally, performance appraisal criteria
have been one of three types—trait-based,
behavior-based, or outcome-based [14], and,
more recently, competency-based criteria have
been used with some success [15]. None of
these methods has been without criticism, but
behavior-based and outcome-based criteria
have been used in combination with some
success in team-based structures. Outcome-
based performance criteria are an essential
aspect of goal-setting programs, which have
long been known to nurture employee motivation
when implemented correctly [16] [17]. In
addition, the assessment of behavioral criteria
provides useful feedback to employees on what
is required to attain specific goals as well as
indicating where training is needed [18].
Many jobs today are multi-faceted and
require employees to engage in many different
types of activities and behaviors in the
performance of their organizational roles [19].
The first step in designing an effective
performance appraisal tool must be the
identification of the broad dimensions of an
employee’s job. For example, many sales
people not only actively sell new accounts or
customers, but also complete administrative
tasks and support existing customers. Thus, the
dimensions of a sales job might include sales,
administration, and customer support. Certainly,
the formal job description should reflect these
dimensions, but the relative priority assigned to
each varies across particular sales positions and
even across particular job incumbents. The
priority assigned to each job dimension reflects
local needs in the department and must remain
flexible--it is not a question of how much time an
incumbent spends on the activity, but how much
time (and energy) he or she should spend given
current department and organizational needs.
We have seen situations where the
demands of a job add up to more than 100 %,
which is clearly a recipe for failure, burnout and
disillusionment on the part of the employee and
for frustration and disappointment on the part of
his or her supervisor. Identifying and negotiating
the weighted dimensions of a job at the
beginning of a performance cycle serves three
purposes:
 it influences employees and supervisors
to think deeply about which activities are
most supportive of department goals
and of the organizational mission
 it communicates to supervisors which
dimensions of jobs employees are most
interested in, perhaps influencing future
assignments
 it results in a concrete agreement
between employees and supervisors on
where time and energy will be focused.
Once job dimensions are specified, the next
step is identifying criteria or standards of
performance within each job dimension. Again,
employees should be encouraged to play at
active role in the process by working with their
supervisor to develop a mutual understanding
on what really matters to their performance.
This dialogue between employee and supervisor
provides a unique opportunity for each to
develop a deep understanding of the other’s
perspectives and to come to an agreement of
what good performance looks like. The
emphasis on each criteria of performance may
differ across job dimensions, and can be
assigned different weights based on discussion
between the supervisor and employee, or
between the supervisor and a group of
employees in similar capacities. For example,
the quantity of work may be the most important
consideration in the administrative dimension of
a salesperson’s job, while oral communication
skills may have much greater relevance in sales
and in customer support.
Figure 1, on the next page, provides data on
a simplified example of a production employee
in a welding department of a manufacturing
facility. At some time in the past, the department
manager reviewed the published job description
with all members of the welding department, and
solicited their ideas regarding the dimensions of
their jobs and the criteria of performance for
each dimension. Following a number of
meetings and discussions, the welders and the
supervisor agreed that their jobs could be
thoroughly defined by just two dimensions that
they jointly labeled “Production” and “Process
Improvement.” In the same meetings, they also
agreed on the weights to be assigned to each
dimension, the criteria of performance for each
dimension, and the weights for each criterion. In
Figure 1, the criteria found relevant to this job
are shaded, and the appropriate weights are
shown. Since all production workers in this
particular department perform within the same
job category, they are all held to the same
performance criterion.
In this example, a production worker rated
herself on each performance factor using a 5-
point Likert scale. Her supervisor rated her
independently. The two of them then discussed
discrepancies in their observations and tried to
reconcile them. Ultimately, the supervisors’
observations were used for the formal appraisal,
but both ratings were maintained in the
employee’s records.
The overall performance rating (400 in the
example) is used to determine the employee’s
compensation. Numerical standards of
performance are set using a statistical
distribution as a guide, and the score is also
used to compare and rank employees within the
same job classification and department. More
importantly, although the employee is rated as a
good production worker, the appraisal indicates
that she has not been able to do as well in the
process improvement part of her job. Since her
ability to take independent action, her
communications, and her judgment are all rated
below average, her supervisor suggests that she
may benefit from additional training in critical
thinking, communication, and leadership.
Together, they consider a developmental plan
that includes 20 hours of training for her in these
areas during the next performance cycle.
Alternatively, a supervisor and a employee
may, on discussion and reflection, jointly decide
that further training is not warranted. Perhaps, it
becomes apparent when comparing her
performance with other workers, that the
employee outperforms most of them in
production, and the supervisor agrees with her
that her time is best spent 100 % on that
dimension of her job. Or perhaps the employee
does not wish to engage in continued training—
these are tradeoffs that we believe need to be
left at the level of the direct supervisor and the
employee. While the ideal may be to have each
and every employee be multi-talented, highly
 FIGURE 1
EXAMPLE PERFORMANCE RATING FOR A PRODUCTION WORKER

Dimension (a) Dimension (b)

Production Process Improvement
Performance Rating Dimension Weight (80 %) Dimension Weight (20%)
for a
Production Worker Criteria Rating Weighted Criteria Rating Weighte
Weight (1-5) Rating (1-5)
(%x
100)

Quality of work 30 5 150 20 2 40

Quantity of Work 30 5 150
Attendance 10 5 50
Independent Action 30 2 60
Resource Use 10 4 40
Relationship Skills 10 4 40
Leadership
Communications 10 2 20 20 2 40
Stress Tolerance
Judgment 30 2 60
Total 100 100 :
Dimension Raw 450 200
Score
Weight of
Dimension 80 % 20 %

Weighted 360 + 40 = 400

Dimension
Ratings

motivated to self-actualize, and cross-trained to

perform many different job functions, the reality The previously described appraisal system
is that many good employees do not fully meet helps develop and reward strong individual
this objective. contributors. But, within team-based
organizations, the goals of individual
In traditional hierarchical organizations, contributors must be more clearly aligned with
when good employees indicate that they do not the broader goals of the team. A singular focus
wish to be cross-trained, a supervisor can: (1) on individual accomplishment can be
explain in a straightforward manner that cross- counterproductive in a work environment where
trained employees have higher levels of information needs to be openly shared, tasks
compensation; (2) explain why this is so; (3) are highly interdependent, and members need to
encourage the employee to cross-train; but (4) collaborate to accomplish the work. In team-
ultimately, respect an employee’s decision in this based organizations, employees must recognize
arena. that team performance is linked to their
contributions to the teams’ processes as well as
GOAL-BASED PERFORMANCE- to the team’s task, and individual development
APPRAISAL IN TEAM-BASED becomes a job requirement.
ORGANIZATIONS
 Teams, like individuals, need to be formally
appraised by management if they are truly to be
recognized as the performance units of an
organization. However, as performance units,
we believe that they should not be evaluated on
“teamwork” or on internal dynamics but on the
extent to which they achieve their goals. While
competency or behavior-based goals can be
very effective in identifying developmental
needs, their exclusive use tends to focus
attention on teamwork for teamwork’s sake
rather than on teams as performance units [20].
The team and the manager should jointly
prepare a contract that identifies the team goals,
and the team should commit as a group to
achieving the goals. Team goals should be
specific and, wherever possible, include
quantifiable output measures, but they can also
include other types of measures. For example,
the goals of a self-managing production team
might include meeting a certain productivity
level, but could also include providing for a
minimum number of hours of training for their
members within the performance cycle, or
minimizing the use of temporary help by
scheduling people more effectively. The goal of
a new product development team will certainly
be to develop a product that will outperform
competitors in the marketplace, but is also likely
to include bringing the project in on time and
within budget. Managers are responsible for
appraising the team’s performance against these
goals.
Cianni and Wnuck suggest that teams,
rather than managers, should be responsible for
appraising the individual performance of their
members, for initiating and implementing the
training and development of members, and for
the monitoring of progress toward team goals
[20]. They also offer numerous examples of
companies in which this system works.
However, we need to recognize that these
prescriptions, while lofty in the abstract, can be
considerably messier in application for a number
of reasons. First, while intact, self-contained
work teams can be equipped through training to
assess member performance relevant to the
task at hand, they are less likely to have a broad
enough view of the organization to manage
individual training and development in
preparation for future assignment. Second,
managers must be actively involved in the
performance appraisal of teams and their
members to assure that goals are aligned at
each level of the organization, and to manage
the legal requirements inherent in performance
appraisal. This becomes particularly important
when performance criteria go beyond the job to
extra-role behaviors such as citizenship,
innovation, and team work [19]. Further, there is
significant evidence, that even in team-based
organizations the supervisor/employee
relationship is critical to employee motivation
[22]. The direct supervisor provides a face and
voice to the abstract organization, and
employees expect them to speak for it [23].
Ultimately, supervisors and managers must
assume a leadership role and cannot abdicate
responsibility for the appraisal, motivation, and
development of employees in team-based
organizations. Finally, even if intact work teams
engaged in on-going, routine tasks can be
trained to adequately appraise performance in a
manner that meets legal requirements,
membership dynamics in other types of
organizational teams largely prevent this.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEAMS AND
DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEAM WORK
There is an unfortunate tendency to make
sweeping generalizations about performance
appraisal in team-based organizations without
considering the different types of teams on
which employees work. For example, the often-
repeated admonition that “team members should
be jointly accountable for attaining the team’s
goal” fails to consider constraints caused by
team structure and mission that limit some
members’ ability to influence team outcomes.
Further, teams need different types of individual
contributions given their different tasks and
structures.
Teams in organizations vary in many ways,
but there are two broad dimensions that are
particularly relevant to performance appraisal
issues—membership dynamics and task type.
Membership dynamics refers to the expected
tenure of a team, to its stability of membership,
and to the allocation of team member work time
[24], [25]. Task type recognizes that
organizational teams engage in a wide variety of
work that varies considerably in terms of how
routine tasks are. Some teams work on routine
tasks that are relatively well scripted and defined
with minimal exceptions to the rule encountered
and where corrective action for exceptions is
fairly easily specified. Other teams work on non-
routine tasks, which tend to be emergent—the
desired outcome and/or the means to task
accomplishment are difficult or impossible to
define in advance—and complex—the task
requires the application of multiple knowledge
bases learned through education in a specific
discipline or through extensive training. While
membership dynamics and task type can vary
independently of the other, there are patterns
among them in the characteristics of teams
typically used in organizations (Figure 2).

Figure 2
Characteristics of Teams used in Team-Based Organizations

(Membership Dynamics)

Stable, Long Tenured, Fluid, Short Tenured,

Dedicated Part-time

Top Management Teams

Non-Routine

Research &
Development
Teams

Product Development
Teams
(Task
Type)
Forest Fighting Teams

Continuous Improvement
Teams

Service Work Teams Ad-hoc Committees

Routine

On-going, intact manufacturing or service “elbow to elbow” throughout a workday.

work teams have long expected tenure,
relatively constant membership, and team
members who spend most of their 40 hour work
week engaged in the team’s task. In these
stable, long-standing teams, members share a
history that extends over multiple performance
appraisal cycles (perhaps even years), they
have expectations of a future, and they interact
Members have similar skills and are cross-
trained to perform any task needed for team
goal accomplishment. This is simplified to a
large degree by the routine nature of the tasks
that these teams are involved in. They receive
performance feedback through iterative cycles of
task completion, providing them with great
potential for team learning, team self-correction,
and team development. We think of work teams
as prototypes of the ideal team.
But most other types of teams in
organizations do not look like the ideal team;
they have greater variability in membership
dynamics and less routine tasks. For example,
standing teams such as safety committees or
process improvement teams in a factory may
have long tenure, but membership tends to
change at predetermined times, and a much
smaller percentage of members' work time is
allocated to their team’s work. Thus,
membership dynamics are more variable than
those of stable work teams, and the task tends
to be somewhat less routine than that of work
teams.
The wide varieties of project teams used
throughout organizations are even more
divergent in character from ideal teams. They
are assembled to confront a specific
organizational problem, and their tenure is tied
to task accomplishment; It can be very short or
relatively long. Membership may be stable on
some project teams but very fluid and
changeable on others. Time allocation can vary
among team members from very low to 100 %.
Among project teams, membership dynamics
range from somewhat to highly fluid depending
on the type of task in which they are involved as
well as the scope of the project. Tasks can
range from somewhat routine to highly non-
routine. Those engaged in more routine tasks
are really ad hoc committees that usually have
short tenure and non-dedicated, but stable,
membership.
As tasks become even less routine, project
teams have longer tenure (assuming the project
has sufficient scope), and a core group of
members are fully dedicated to the team, but
technical specialists and support people still
come and go as they are needed. Members
vary considerably in terms of their functional
knowledge and technical specialties. Of
particular consequence, the relative contribution
to the team’s goals varies considerably across
members. Because the nature of the work is
emergent rather than scripted, the team must
spend time defining steps needed for task
completion and preferred outcomes drawing on
the disparate expertise of various team
members to do so. Because the membership is
fluid and the task is non-scripted, they do not
engage in iterative cycles of work completion,
and they receive less direct task feedback.
Learning is more likely to be individual rather
than team learning per se, and it is transferred to
other projects as individuals move from team to
team. Such learning benefits future teams more
than the current team, and, over time,
employees who transfer skills adequately
become project leaders and managers
themselves responsible for the leadership
functions on the team.
EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
OF TEAM MEMBERS
In considering performance appraisal of
team members, two issues must be addressed:
(1) what criteria and method should be used to
appraise each team member’s individual
contribution to the team; and (2) the extent to
which a team member can justly be held
accountable for the team’s goal attainment.
Very different “teaming” behaviors are
required for different teams, and these
differences should be reflected in the
performance appraisal system. Much prior work
on individual teaming competencies tends to
focus on those needed in ideal teams, that is, in
self-managing production or service work teams.
In Table 1, on the next page, we offer a list of
performance competencies needed by team
members in self-managing work teams based on
our experience as well as prior literature [2],
[26], [27]. These competencies relate to the
building of productive work-relationships among
team members, contributions to greater
harmony within the team, and the assumption by
members of leadership responsibilities including
goal setting, planning, and team improvement.
Because all members participate 100 % in team
task accomplishment, and their contributions are
assumed to be equal, every member of the team
is assessed using the same criteria. There is
nothing magical about the ten criteria that we
present--we strongly recommend that teams and
their managers review this list as a starting point
only.
 TABLE 1
TEAMING COMPETENCIES FOR MEMBERS OF SELF-MANAGING WORK TEAMS

1. Competence: Team members are chosen on the basis of their competence to contribute to the
achievement of the team’s objectives, and they should be assessed on the extent to which they bring
that competence to bear to meet the particular set of technical, business, or other challenges the
team faces.

2. Leadership: In self-managing teams, team members share this responsibility, and all members
should be assessed on their ability to act in the role of a coach or facilitator, to remove roadblocks for
the team, to use their planning and organizing ability, and to establish or promote team norms.

3. Goal Focus: Team members have to be results-driven and must be able to stay focused on the
task at hand despite distractions. They should be assessed on their ability to avoid become mired in
minor details or personal skirmishes, and the extent to which they encourage each other to stay
focused on the team goal.

4. Reliability: Successful problem resolution relies on a foundation of trust that is built through
honesty, openness, consistency, and respect. Team members do not need to like each other or be
friends, but they need to be able to have confidence in each other’s work.

5. Commitment to Teamwork: Team members must understand, accept, and implement team
decisions and individual assignments. They should be willing to make sacrifices for the success of
the team, and they should demonstrate interest and involvement.

6. Communication Skills: Team members need good listening skills, and they also must be able
to verbalize their ideas convincingly to others, to prepare accurate team reports, and to use
appropriate business language.

7. Collaboration: Teams need free and open information sharing. Team members must be willing
to express their ideas and the logic behind them, to listen to the ideas of others, and to work in good
faith toward a synthesis of all team members’ ideas.

8. Relationship Skills: Teams where interpersonal conflict is rampant seldom achieve their ends.
Team members need to be supportive of each other, to use tact and show respect to others, to
provide feedback that is behavioral and relevant to task accomplishment, and to keep conflict
focused on the task rather than on the person.

9. Commitment to Learning and Improving: Team members should support the development of
their own competence as well as that of other members proactively searching for and welcome
additional training opportunities to improve team performance. In self-managing work teams,
established members must be mentors and journeymen to new members.

10. Goal Setting and Performance Management: Team members must understand how to set
realistic individual and team goals that challenge but do not frustrate. They must develop
appropriate metrics to monitor team performance, and they must be willing to hold each other
accountable through peer evaluation for obtaining desired results.

They should include those they believe are While some of the teaming competencies
relevant to their particular team and negotiate recommended for self-managing work teams
weights assigned to each criterion. also apply to project teams engaged in non-
routine work, many are not relevant and
additional competencies may need to be added.
For example, project teams engaged in product
development must focus externally as well as
internally by seeking political support for their
project, coordinating with other areas of the
organization as well as with external suppliers,
and scanning competitors and external technical
resources. Political skills thus become important
to the team [28] [29]. There is also likely to be a
greater need in these teams for creative
problem-solving skills, greater knowledge of
group decision-making techniques in general,
and a stronger need to be adept at using inquiry
and dialogue in communications [6] [7], but less
emphasis on team self-management skills [30].
Although the membership is often comprised of
highly educated specialists, ironically team self-
management is often less appropriate than it is
in production work teams. In general, the less
variable membership dynamics and the more
routine the task, the more possible and desirable
it becomes to move management functions into
the team, and to make members jointly
responsible for team goal attainment. As team
membership dynamics become more fluid and
the task becomes more complex, strong
leadership becomes more critical to goal
accomplishment [3].
In addition to differences in the criteria of
performance, the performance appraisal
methods must be modified to reflect the different
membership dynamics in work teams and
project teams. For work teams, it is critical that
teams and managers share in the responsibility
for the performance appraisal process. Team
members should prepare a contract among
themselves regarding individual contributions
required of each member. All members should
assess other members on the same weighted
performance criteria, and managers should use
this information as a tool to determine an
employee’s overall performance rating. Teams
use the performance assessment data to work
with their members to design individual
development plans and to determine training
needs (which may be either individual or team
training or a combination of both). Finally, to
determine compensation, each member’s
average peer rating is adjusted to reflect the
team’s goal attainment. In these teams,
members truly are jointly and individually
accountable for team goal attainment.
Figure 3 shows the performance appraisal of
the hypothetical production employee we looked
at earlier, but she is now assigned full-time to a
self-managing work team. As shown, the
individual’s job collapses into one job dimension,
teamwork, with a total of 10 equally weighted
performance criteria. The performance criteria
that the team and manager have agreed are
relevant to this team are shaded in the example.
The total raw assessment for the teamwork
dimension in this case is 460. However, during
this performance cycle, the team only achieved
at a rate of 86 % of goal. The individual
assessment of 460 is adjusted to reflect the
team’s accomplishment toward goal, yielding a
final rating of 395.6 for this employee.
In teams that have more fluid membership
dynamics, the performance appraisal process
needs to be modified. Because of different
membership roles, the weights assigned to
teamwork dimensions of a job will vary across
members. Because of the different levels of
team involvement, members cannot be held
equally accountable for team goal attainment.
The longer team tenure, the more stable the
membership, and the more dedicated the
members are to the group, the more project
teams come to resemble work teams, and the
more similar should the performance appraisal
be to that described above, at least for core
members. Yet, even in these longer tenured
teams, support personnel and technical
personnel will come and go as needed and
present a challenge to the appraisal system.
Some have argued that project teams are, in
fact, not teams at all, but just a loose collection
of individual contributors, and that support
personnel and technical personnel just be
appraised on their individual work rather than as
team members. We strongly oppose this
suggestion. If you want people to put the needs
of a focal team before their own and before (or
 FIGURE 3
EXAMPLE PERFORMANCE RATING FOR A MEMBER OF A SELF-MANAGING
PRODUCTION TEAM

Dimension (a)
Performance Rating Teamwork Competencies
for a
Production Worker Average of
Criteria Peer Weighted Rating
Weight Rati
ngs
(1-5)

Competence 10 5 50
Leadership 10 4 40
Goal Focus 10 5 50
Reliability 10 5 50
Commitment 10 5 50
Communication 10 5 50
Collaboration 10 5 50
Relationship Skills 10 5 50
Learning/Improvement 10 4 40
Goal Setting 10 4 40
Performance Management 10 4 40
Political Skills 0
Decision-Making 0
Independence 0
Dialogue Skills 0
Total Available 100 Total 460
Weight of Dimension 100 %
Weighted Dimension Ratings 460
Team Performance Against 86.0 %
Goals
Overall Performance Rating 395.6

at least on par with) the needs of competing
teams, you must specify what team contribution
is needed and then hold people accountable for
it. As importantly, you must hold them
accountable for the team’s outcomes but only to
the extent that they were able to contribute given
their role and the membership dynamics of the
team.
For example, support people such as
technicians, statisticians, or clerical people,
whose services are usually requisitioned by a
project manager from a central support staff,
should also be evaluated on their contribution to
project teams they work on. The functional
manager and support employees should come
to a joint agreement on what their contributions
to project teams should be. Functional
managers should be responsible for seeking an
evaluation of an employee from project leaders
he or she worked for against the agreed upon
criteria of performance. This could be done
whenever a support person’s time allocation to a
team reached a certain threshold level within the
performance cycle—say 200 hours for annual
cycles (or whatever the organization decided
was appropriate). To avoid making the process
overly cumbersome and inefficient, the number
of project leader appraisals sought annually on
any given support person should be limited. The
idea is to receive a representative amount of
feedback to encourage and motivate support
staff to focus on teamwork as an important burdening the system.
dimension of their job feedback without over-
FIGURE 4
EXAMPLE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL OF A PROJECT ENGINEER

Factor
Individual Dimension Average of
Performance (a) Dimension (b) Project Project Project Project
Criteria Developmen Team Work 1 2 3 Appraisals
t Competencies Rating Rating Rating
Engineering
(Wt * Rating)
Quantity of Competence 50 50 50 50
Work 10 * 5 = 50
Quality of 40 * 5 = 200 Leadership
Work
Attendance Goal Focus 50 50 40 47

Indep. Action 10 * 4 = 40 Reliability 50 50 40 47

Resource Use Commitment 50 50 30 43.3

Rel’ship Skills Communication 50 50 50 50

Leadership Collaboration 50 50 50 50

Communicatio 10 X 3 = 30 Rel’ship Skills

n
Stress 10 * 5 = 50 Learn/Improve
Tolerance
Judgment 20 * 4 = 80 Goal Setting

Performance
Mgt
Political Skills 40 40 40 40

Decision-Making 50 50 40 46.7

Independence 50 50 40 46.7

Dialogue Skills 50 50 50 50

Dimension
Raw Score 450 470.7
Dimension
Weight .20 .80
Weighted
Dimension 90 + 376.6 = 466.6
Score
Average Team Performance Against Goals .90

Overall Performance Rating 419.9

 Figure 4 shows functional example, 90) and contribution into the
a hypothetical manager), but on teamwork (in this determination of
performance their ability to example, 376.6)— rewards.
appraisal rating communicate are then summed to
form for an technical give an individual
engineer who information in a overall rating of THE UP-SHOT?
worked on a manner that is 466.6. Finally, the LE
number of different useful to other overall rating is AD
projects during the members who are weighted by the ER
performance not specialists. average of the three SH
appraisal cycle. Again, we project teams’ IP
The shaded recommend that the performance ratings
IS
functional manager against their goal
area represents the seek out a number (i.e., 90 %). Thus, CR
performance criteria of project leader for the engineer, his ITI
that the engineer appraisals. performance ratings CA
and the functional consider his L
manager have To simplify the contribution to his TO
agreed are critical example, we have functional EF
in the product excluded columns department, his FE
development of weights and contribution to three CTI
engineering ratings assigned to of the projects he VE
function and as a different has worked on, and
PE
project team performance the average
member. criterion, but include performance of the RF
the multiplicative project teams OR
Another term and the result against their goals. MA
example occurs in column 2. The His final rating, on NC
with technical project leaders of which his E
people whose the different compensation is AP
expertise is in projects the determined, is PR
scarce supply in an engineer worked on 419.9. AI
organization. They provided the SA
often serve on more assessment of the In summary, it
L
than one team teamwork criteria, is difficult to say
simultaneously, and and the average exactly when part-
their time may be rating of the three time members of a
allocated to as projects was used team contribute
many as 10 to 20 for the overall enough to be held
projects a year or in assessment of each jointly and
any one performance individually
performance criterion. The accountable for the
appraisal cycle. functional manager team’s work.
Nevertheless, their provided the ratings Despite the
contribution to of the criteria for the difficulty,
these projects, product organizations need
though limited in development to seriously
time, is likely to be dimension, which consider the
critical due to their comprises 20 % of question, and when
particular technical this engineer’s job. enough is reached,
expertise. The The weighted they need to include
issue here is not to ratings for the two the team’s
obtain a rating of dimensions of the performance
employee technical engineer’s job— against goal and
competence (which product the individual’s
is best done by the development (in this teamwork
An effective to nt of
perf use that perf
orm a the orm
anc goa perf anc
e l- orm e
app bas ing app
rais ed unit rais
al syst , al
syst em wh sho
em that eth uld
in a hol er rem
tea ds indi ain
m- the vid at
bas tea ual the
ed m or loc
org acc tea al
ani oun m, lev
zati tabl be el—
on e acti bet
sho for vely we
uld res inv en
incl ults olv the
ude and ed ma
a indi with nag
res vid the er
ults ual nex and
- s t the
orie acc hig tea
ntat oun her ms
ion tabl lev and
and e el bet
a for in we
con thei the en
cer r join the
n con t tea
with trib det ms
the utio erm and
pro n to inat thei
ces the ion r
ses tea of me
that m. app mb
ena At ropr ers.
ble eac iate Thi
res h goa s
ults org ls pro
. ani and vid
On zati crit es
e ona eria flexi
way l of bilit
to lev perf y in
acc el, orm tail
om it is anc orin
plis vital e. g
h ly The indi
this imp loc vid
is orta us ual
perf e pla effective leadership
orm tea ns, in this arena.
anc m as
e me well
app mb as
rais ers pro
al — vidi
to and ng
acc the qui
om diff cke
mo ere r
dat nt res
e typ pon
the es se
ma of tim
ny con e
diff trib wh
ere utio en
nt ns cha
typ req nge
es uire is
of d nee
wor for ded
k diff .
arra ere
nge nt Finally, we
me typ emphasize that the
nts es responsibility for
fou of effective
nd tas performance
in ks. appraisal ultimately
org Loc rests with
ani al management.
zati ma While this
ons nag responsibility can
tod em be shared with
ay ent employees and with
— als teams, it is
indi o managers who
vid facil must assure that
ual itat goals are aligned
con es from the
trib the organizational level
utor des down to the level of
s, ign individual
part of contributors and
- indi that employees and
tim vid teams understand
e ual and commit to
tea and these goals. Team-
m tea based structures
me m have increased
mb dev rather than
ers, elo diminished the
or pm critical need for
cor ent
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