Dr. Ellen Ritter
Professor and Head
Agricultural Communications

Background

In the last two decades many corporations have gone through fundamental organizational changes involving the introduction of different and innovative structures. Part of that structural change was an outgrowth of "total quality management" which includes the use of "quality" circles, whereby workers are asked to suggest and implement improvements to their own work processes. This led to crossfunctional production teams and ultimately to the notion that teams of employees in many different types of organizations would be more effective and productive if they managed their own work processes. Concurrently, "merger mania" and downsizing allowed for significant reductions of supervisory positions and supported the movement toward team structures. These restructured corporations became less hierarchical, more decentralized with empowered business units, sectors or regions, and more teamoriented than in the past. In the meantime, new companies, especially in the computer field, simply used selfdirected teams (including virtual teams) from the outset as a preferred management structure. The Center for the Study of Work Teams estimates that 80 percent of Fortune 500 organizations will have half of their employees on teams by the end of 2000.¹

In universities, the use of teams is more likely seen in multidisciplinary scholarly and outreach/extension activities, specialized committees and task forces than in the formal administrative and departmental management structure.² Yet, some university units have had the latitude to adopt teambased management. That was the case for Agricultural Communications, a support unit of The Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program. This paper provides background on team management and offers our fiveyear experience at Texas A&M as a case study of applying team principles in an agricultural communications department.

Method

Defining the Terms: Teamwork, Teams and SelfManaged Teams
"Teamwork" can take place among people in any group. In an agricultural communications unit, teams may consist of two people working together on a task, to an ad hoc project group, appointed committees or an entire management subunit of the department.

Most communication units, regardless of how they are organized, have members engaged in teamwork on a regular or occasional basis. Likewise, most units probably also have instances of "teamwork" in name only. Groups that function by having a leader make the decisions and delegate tasks to members are not teams. Nor are groups where one or two people "do all the work" by default (or inability to involve others). Teamwork can occur in a group with an appointed or elected leader, or in a socalled "leaderless" group. The fundamental criteria for teamwork are full participation by all members of the group, joint decisionmaking, and responsibility of ind ividuals for the success of the group.

"Selfmanaged" or "selfdirected" teams are specialized instances of teams because they assume some or all of the functions normally provided by supervisors or administrators. For example, in industries that have adopted this approach, selfmanaged teams have team mission statements and plans, hire and fire team members, handle their own budgets, establish their work processes and coordinate with other teams, among other tasks.³ While our experience at Texas A&M has been with selfdirected teams, the principles involved apply broadly to teamwork situations, whether they include management tasks or not.

Why Teams?
Why adopt a team orientation or reorganize a unit to be teammanagedBespecially when you have an organization that has been functioning well under a supervisory system? One rationale is that in today's environment organizations are relying on teams as they discover that tradition al methods of problem solving, decision making, communication and implementation are not fast or flexible enough to respond to the challenges of the times.

Among the advantages commonly cited for teams are the following:

· Increased intelligence and innovation. A team has access to diverse people and information, so its members can make higher quality decisions. Freed from constraints of the hierarchy, teamwork leads to more innovation.

· Unity of purpose. Teamwork helps people with different backgrounds and perspectives focus on a common goal.

· Skill building. Participating on a team helps build a range of skills, such as a person's ability to communicate, coordinate, cooperate, and solve problems.

· Ownership and empowerment. Teams provide the stimulus for people to take responsibility for their own actions, rather than relying on supervisors for direction.⁴

While management experts caution against forming teams w ithout compelling business reasons, other less objective reasons may enter into the decision. Those include favorable attitudes of top management toward more democratic approaches in the workplace and a belief that it's "the right thing to do"; perceived problems with supervisors' ability to change and/or struggles for control and power between supervisors and employees; and a simple desire for dramatic action that will "free" up people and provide an impetus for needed improvement and innovation. These factors influenced the decision to move to team management in Agricultural Communications at Texas A&M.

Teamwork is not the most appropriate choice for every work task, nor is it appropriate for every managerial task. Much of the work done in agricultural communications units is accomplished by individual activity, such as a writer composing a news story, a graphic designer creating a page layout, or a videographer shooting footage. In general, however, teams ar e said to outperform individuals when:

· The task is complex
· Creativity is needed
· The path forward is unclear
· More efficient use of resources is required
· Fast learning is necessary
· High commitment is desirable
· The implementation of a plan requires the cooperation of others
· The task or process is crossfunctional⁵

Virtually all improvements in processes and procedures within a communications unit meet some or all of these criteria. The growing complexity of communications products produced, such as information campaigns involving multiple media, or the "reinvention" of products through technology (e.g., publications to web information) also require team approaches. Even mundane management tasks, such as budgeting or administrative reporting, relate to the efficient use of resources, and require commitment and cooperation in implementation of plans among those involved.

Stages of Team Growth
Perhaps the mo st frustrating aspect of working in teams is the almost universal expectation that the group can function effectively from the outset. That is seldom the case, as teams are not "born," but "made" over time. The stages of team growth have been researched and documented in a number of scholarly and popular publications. Among the best and most practical treatment is that provided by Scholtes, Joiner and Streibel in the 2nd edition of The Team Handbook.⁶ This section outlines their description of team growth.

Teams are complicated entities. Team members have to deal with internal group needs which are as important as the group's task of solving problems, improving processes or completing daily work. A team goes through four fairly predictable stages in learning to cope with these group pressures and needs.

Stage 1: Forming. Individuals experience excitement or anticipation, may have tentative attachment to the team and yet also experience suspicion or an xiety about the job ahead. Behaviors include attempts to define the task; attempts to determine acceptable team behavior and how to deal with team problems; abstract discussions of concepts and issues, impatience with these abstract discussions; discussion of irrelevant items; complaints about the organization and barriers to the task. These initial distractions make progress toward goals very slow.

Stage 2: Storming. This is the most difficult stage, in that individuals are impatient about the lack of progress and often relying solely on their personal and professional experience, resisting the need for collaboration with other team members. Behaviors include arguing, even when they agree on the real issue; defensiveness and competition; factions and choosing sides; establishing unrealistic goals, concern about excessive work; and creation of a perceived pecking order among members, thus creating disunity and increased tension.

Stage 3: Norming. Membe rs reconcile competing loyalties and responsibilities and accept the team and its norms. There is a sense of team cohesion and relief that it seems everything is going to work out. Behaviors include an attempt to achieve harmony by avoiding conflict, more friendliness, sharing of personal problems; a new ability to express constructive criticism; establishing and maintaining team ground rules and boundaries. As differences are worked out, team members start making significant progress in their work.

Stage 4: Performing. The team has settled its relationships and expectations. They can begin diagnosing and solving problems, implementing changes and innovating. Team members have discovered and accepted each other's strengths and weaknesses and learned what their roles are. Members are satisfied with the teams progress and have a close attachment to it. Behaviors include constructive selfchange and the ability to prevent or work through group problems.

The duration and intensity of these stages vary from team to team. A project team may go through the process once, or get stuck in the early stages and not succeed as a team. When the latter happens, the "team" usually evolves into something else with one or two people "getting the job done" to their satisfaction. An ongoing group, such as a selfmanaged work team, will experience the stages in cycles. New tasks or deadlines, the addition or loss of new members, or other changes can cause an ongoing team to slip back into an earlier stage and require working through the process again. Given this "up and down" process of developing teams, there are no guarantees of success.

Working effectively in teams is not an easy one, and teams sometimes do fail. The most common reasons cited for a team's failure include the following:
· It is incompatible with the hierarchical structure of its parent organization
· It lacks visible support and commitment from top manag ement
· Members focus on task activities to the exclusion of work on member relationships
· Members are unwilling to take responsibility for their own behavior and actions
· The team is too large and lacks the strong structure necessary to deal with a large team
· Members are unwilling to recognize and accept the stages of team process
· The team has experienced poor leadership within and/or outside the team
· The organization has failed to use team efforts in any meaningful way
· Members have received insufficient training.⁷

Recognizing both the factors of success and of failure is significant in making a team structure work effectively. However, our experiment at Texas A&M began in 1994, not with a clear understanding of the challenges, but with an optimism that this was an appropriate direction for our department to take.

Establishing Teams in Agricultural Communications at Texas A&M
A changing Agricultural Communications ⁸ department structure, perceived advantages of team management, and a variety of internal and external circumstances led to the shift from hierarchical to a team management at Texas A&M.

Like many other communications units supporting land grant university agricultural colleges, our unit had been organized into sections led by variouslytitled supervisors who reported to the department head. The sections were organized by products, such as print news, video/radio, art, and separate Extension publications and Experiment Station publications. In the late 1980's a new department head reorganized the department to reflect current and emerging functions and to promote innovation. New sections were formed for educational media, news, and marketing. Each of these sections included writers or editors, video producers and graphic designers and each was managed by an assistant department head who supervised the individuals working in that section. The reorganization allowed us to create a marketing section as well as integrate Extension/Experiment Station publishing operations. That arrangement was modified as the video producers were placed in a separate group again for greater production efficiency and the group was enlarged to also include computer and multimedia specialists, who worked across news, educational media and marketing. By the early 1990s the department consisted of educational media, electronic media, marketing and news sections.

While the reorganization was deemed successful, the continuation of a system of section supervisors (assistant department heads) began to seem less than ideal. A variety of efforts in the total Agriculture Program of The Texas A&M System were promoting teamwork and greater faculty and professional staff involvement and leadership at all levels. Other contributing circumstances within the unit were, however, probably the deciding factors. Those included the retirement of one of the assistant d epartment heads which prompted reevaluation of the position, retreats conducted by an outside consultant to facilitate teamwork within two of the sections, and the department head's leadership and commitment. Initial steps toward team management began with one section in 1994 and by 1995, the assistant department head positions had been eliminated. The department administration consisted of a head, an associate head and "self-managed teams"replacing the sections.

Teams were charged with management of their own work processes (e.g., planning, scheduling, coordination internally and with clientele), a budget, team reporting, screening and making hiring recommendations and other matters. In fall, 1995 a "coordinator" was appointed for each team. Those individuals are members of their respective teams and have no supervisory duties. The primary role of the coordinator is to represent the team in the Team Council and to coordinate response to requests coming from the c ouncil or the head/associate head. Team members share or rotate management tasks such as monitoring budget, chairing meetings, keeping records, etc.

Results

Lessons Learned from the Process of Team Management
We have attempted to apply team management principles in Agricultural Communications since 1994-5 and learned a great deal in that time. Many of the practical problems and issues we encountered tend to support what the literature offers in theory. The following "lessons learned" reflect my perspective as unit head, although much of that perspective was formed from the input of members of the unit. I conducted two surveys to gauge the effectiveness of team functioning in fall of 1995 and 1999. Some results and representative comments from those surveys are included in this discussion.

Lesson 1: Team management does not change human nature. The "personality conflicts" that exist within any group do not cease when the organization turns to team management. In fact, they may increase for a period of time, as in many cases the former section supervisor mediated or had the authority to force compromises, which is how the group functioned in the past. Team management means the group has to "storm" through such issues. This can be extremely uncomfortable, especially when due to culture, habit or personal preference, people have tended to avoid conflict. In the work domain, a similar situation arises when team members do not want to "correct" or be critical of another's work or less than adequate contribution to the team. Over time, unresolved interpersonal or performance issues seriously impact team functioning and require outside intervention.

Lesson 2: Effective team performance requires training. Most staff members had little background in how to work in teams. Many professionals did not have experience with tasks formerly done by supervisors, such as chairing meetings or giving reports to groups, yet teams thrust them into those roles. We devote professional development time and budget to conferences or training that enhances our communications work. Yet, for effect ive team functioning, it is equally important that all staff have knowledge of group processes and individual roles, and improve skills in areas such as group problem solving methods, interpersonal communication and conflict management. At Texas A&M, we have done some (but not enough) training through unit and team meetings or retreats, but have mostly learned the hard way by trialanderror.

Lesson 3: Team management takes time. When people don't know much about how team processes work, they also have little understanding of how much time it can take. That was perhaps the greatest frustration early in the process and just now is beginning to be of less concern. Staff initially liked the idea of taking over many tasks handled by supervisors, such as budget management and screening new hires, but soon found that such tasks absorb a great deal of time, especially because they were new to these tasks. In the 1995 survey, people had complaints such as "Dealing with tea m process stuff has taken away time to focus on actual work," or "Too many meetings!" As the teams got more efficient at doing these chores that has become less of an issue. Most of the teams meet briefly every week to coordinate their work and monthly for management matters and discussion of issues. Some teams "retreat" periodically for brainstorming, planning or working out issues. The 1999 survey indicated that 98 percent of respondents thought team budgeting, discussion of workrelated problems and working on team plans and goals for the future were important to them personally and for their job effectiveness, and that their teams spent "about the right amount of time" dealing with team tasks.

Lesson 4: Teams do not equalize individuals. Individuals obviously vary in their job experience, skills and expertise, interests, discipline, motivation, energy and many other factors. Yet, as one staff member said in the 1995 survey, "we no longer work as a team where e veryone is equal." When people define teamwork as "equality" they are bound to be disappointed. In some cases, team members have had to learn that their key concern should not be that everyone is equal but that each person fills various roles that best use his or her capabilities. Of particular concern are new hires, both inexperienced and those with experience elsewhere who are new to our operation. We eventually started an informal mentorship program, pairing an experienced professional with the new employee to help him or her make the transition into the job and teams. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of the units' highest performing individuals have had difficulty with the team concept, because they feel they must often go back to more elementary levels to "bring people along." These top performers, who typically have a history of excelling as individuals, need to understand and be recognized by the unit administrator for the important roles they play as mento rs, role models and thought leaders in their teams. But they, like all members of the unit, must also have continued opportunities to excel as individuals in their central creative activities (e.g., writing, design) that are not team tasks. Balancing individual needs, interests, and agendas with those of the team is an ongoing issue.

Lesson 5: The quality of an individual's teamwork has to be communicated, evaluated and rewarded. Probably every person in our unit has, at times, felt there was little incentive for teamwork. Complaints would surface about individuals who didn't do their share or fully contribute, while others felt they had "done all the work" for which the team got "credit". Theoretically, the responsibility for evaluation and feedback about an individual's team performance is vested first in the team itself, and then with management. However, our teams typically did not engage in formal or informal evaluation of individual contributions. Our annua l performance appraisal system includes a category in which a supervisor can evaluate the person's skills in teamwork, cooperation or coordination. But without direct feedback from those with whom the person is working, that evaluation is relatively generic and probably of little help in changing behavior. In our 1999 survey, all but one member of our staff agreed that we should establish a system of team input about individuals' performance in and contributions to the team. An instrument and a system for collecting the information have been developed and used for the first time in December. (A copy of the instrument is included at the end of this paper.) Each member of the unit will receive ratings and comments from his or her fellow teammembers prior to an annual performance review at the beginning of the year and again at mid year. The team evaluations will become part of each person's performance review in an effort to provide feedback and evaluation and to reward peop le for effectiveness on that work dimension.

Lesson 6: Teams must be "empowered." Fundamentally, empowerment is about the distribution of power. In organizations, this is most obvious in decisionmaking authorityBwho has the power to make what kinds of decisions. Daniel Kim coined the term "lurking approver" to describe the role of a designated manager in trying to empower teams. It is a tricky role because it can look like the manager has "empowered" others to make decisions as long as they meet his or her approval. However, the reality is that this role is often needed when the team is not in a position either by experience or scope of responsibility to make a decision that will work in the larger organization. The "lurking approver" should have the knowledge to serve as the safety net in the process. ⁹ We (unit head and associate head) have tried to manage this role by being involved in general discussion with teams or individuals in the group prior to their d ecisionmaking on matters that extend outside of their full control, as well as informing them of state law, university policy or organizational considerations that must be taken into account. After that, team decisions and recommendations are taken seriously and modified or rejected by administration only for cause.

Lesson 7: Team management requires openness and communication, communication, communication. We have operated since 1995 with teams having access to their own operating budgets, and through their representatives to the Team Council, information about the total department operating budget as well as all other decisions affecting the unit, such as the status of filling positions. Much of that information is also provided to all staff by the unit head's (supposedly) weekly electronic newsletter. Our 1999 survey indicated that some people felt they were not getting adequate information through their team coordinators and/or that they did not have enough k nowledge of or input into unitlevel decisionmaking that affected them and their teams. In the past year, further measures to keep everyone informed include increasing the frequency of the weekly newsletter by sharing the task between the head and associate head; adding two atlarge members to the Team Council and moving the meeting to a larger room so anyone can attend (typically five or six additional people come); posting Team Council notes and other unit documents to the Web. Perhaps most important, the Team Council went through a process of revising the unit's statement of operating procedures and making those as explicit as possible, especially regarding the roles and responsibilities of teams, team members and team coordinators. That draft document was issued to all staff members and discussed in the teams before being made final this fall. Team management is essentially a democratic process and requires frequent and open communication that supports the involvement of all.

Lesson 8: Don't replace one inflexible system with another. A team system needs to be flexible and dynamic. Very early in our process, we had to move two people to different teams and to reconstitute a video group. A "section mentality" can lead to the notion that teams must be composed of the same people operating together over long periods of time, but we have found otherwise. Changes in goals, services, clients, technology or human resources may make changes to team personnel necessary or desirable. We have moved people to different teams as vacancies have occurred and they desired new challenges or a better fit with their skills. We have split teams that were too large or divisive into smaller, morefocused teams, discovering (afterthefact) that the research on group processes shows a group of six people, plus or minus two, is optimum size for a work group. We will probably create a new team this year. Theoretically, far more flexibility should be one of the great strengths of a team management system and we have just begun to experience that.

Conclusions

The Net Effect of Teams
While many of the "lessons learned" at Texas A&M have negative aspects, the positives resulting from team management have been transforming for individuals and the unit as a whole. We have a far more open and flexible workplace than in the past. The teams take initiative for planning, brainstorming and innovating. There is more individual and team responsibility and less opportunity (or need) to blame others for problems or errors when they occur. For the most part, people try to see what's wrong in the system, fix it and move on. Our teams have been excellent managers of their fiscal resources, highly responsible in following human resource procedures and thoughtful in their hiring recommendations.

Team management has created leadership opportunities for almost all our staff, not just those who in the past would have been in supervisory or appointed leadership roles. Almost everyone can and has been in charge of something, wheth er it's leading a communications project team, spearheading a process improvement or handling daytoday team management tasks. Some individuals have stepped into new roles and accomplishments well beyond what they had done in the past.

We have learned how to work better in teams. Learning from the ongoing selfmanaged teams has resulted in better performing ad hoc project groups and the unit's standing functional committees (e.g., technology, professional development) that bring together people from the different teams. Our most significant accomplishments both in terms of communications projects and the effectiveness and efficiency of our work processes, have come as a result of teams.

The level of commitment to selfmanaged teams is stronger. Sample comments from the 1995 survey, included those calling for "...a supervisory leader," or for the head to "appoint a team leader who will run meetings, make daytoday decisions, assign work, manage the budget a nd make evaluation recommendations." While these kinds of comments were in the minority, they indicated a sentiment still held by a few people who are more comfortable under a direct supervisory system. Nonetheless, the 1999 survey indicates overall satisfaction with selfdirected teams, with most criticism and suggestions being directed toward unitlevel issues.

Changes in structure and management seem to become easier with time, as they become the norm. Personnel changes also contribute to promoting a team culture, as people hired into positions are also opting into this management system at the outset. However, we are not through learning about how to effectively utilize selfdirected teams in our unit. In particular, the unit needs to develop a continuous training program, enhance team accountability for outcomes, and find ways to better reward team accomplishments.

The Future of Teams and Unit Structures in a New Era of Communications
In her 1989 study of the organizational structure of corporate public relations departments, Larissa Gruing stated, "There is no organizational structure for the public relations function that will be ideal for all organizations and all environments." ¹⁰ While her statement is probably true, it seems equally evident that how a communications unit is organized will determine the management options available. Very little research had been conducted on the organizational structure of public relations or communications departments at the time of Grunig's review, and the same could be said today. Although some survey data has likely been presented at professional meetings, published information about the structure and management of agricultural communication units is also lacking.

Certainly many agricultural communications units have looked to teamwork, if not team management, to help them meet the demands of new technology, clients and services. Yet even our notions of tea ms and teamwork may be challenged and redefined by larger organizational changes. Fraser Likely, writing in Strategic Communication Management drew on a number of surveys and reports to develop a structural design continuum of corporate models for a public relations/communication function. He describes ten models, beginning with "traditional central department" models of the service center, center of expertise, and account executive models. Toward the middle of the spectrum are three models that mark a transition from centralized to distributed services and involve units structured as cost or profit centers. At the other end of the spectrum are models growing out of the new decentralized organizations, including those for shared services, insourcing and outsourcing.¹¹ While the applicability of corporate models to the university world is often limited, we can see elements of these structural changes in the shift of publications editors into department clusters at the Uni versities of Illinois and Florida. ¹²

Selfmanaged teams are certainly not the only way to manage and structure a department, but based on our experience at Texas A&M, they seem to offer a viable approach. To the extent that team management creates the advantages of enhanced unity of purpose and ownership, innovation, and flexibility, it should better equip us to meet the challenges of the future.

Notes
Ellen M. Ritter is professor and head of Agricultural Communications with The Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program.

1. Carla Joinson, "Teams at Work," HRMagazine, vol. 44, no. 5, May, 1999, p. 30

2. Critics are quick to point to the structure of higher education as one of its problems or drawbacks. In one effort at change, the Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to promote "collective leadership" and team approaches among faculty to achieve mutual goals and innovate i n developing new programs.

3. Milan Moravec, Odd Jan Johannessen and Thor A. Hjelmas, "The Well Managed SMT," Management Review, vol. 87, no. 6, June, 1998.

4. Michele L. Bechtell, Untangling Organizational Gridlock, ASQC Quality Press, 1993, p.87.

5. Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner, Barbara J. Streibel, The Team Handbook, 2nd ed., Oriel, 1996, p. 11.

6. Scholes, Joiner and Streibel, pp. 64 69.

7. The Team Building Tool Kit, p. 22.

8. The Agricultural Communications unit of The Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program employs approximately 40 people. Eight staff members are field staff, located primarily at regional research and extension centers throughout the state. While there is a "field team," it is of necessity a different type of entity than the campuslocated teams that are the subject of discussion in this section. The shift to a team management system was begun under Barry Jones, former department hea d, and continued after he left Texas A&M in 1995.

9. Daniel H. Kim, "Decision-Making: The Empowerment Challenge," The Systems Thinker, vol. 6, no. 7, Sept., 1995.

10. David M. Dozier and Larissa A. Grunig, "The Organization of the Public Relations Function," Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, James E. Grunig, ed., Erlbaum, 1992, p. 402.

11. Fraser Likely, "Reorganize Your Communication Function: Ten Structural Models for the New Look Organization," Strategic Communication Management, Issue 11, August/Sept., 1998, pp. 2833.
12. Anita A. Povich and Gary L. Rolfe, "Strategies for Building Communications Performance in a More Demanding Administrative Environment," paper presented at the ACE/NETC Conference, July 1519, Burlington, Vt. Also, personal conversation with Ashley Wood, director of Educational Media and Services, IFAS, Univ. of Florida.


Team Member Feedback Form

Your Name _____ ____________________

The following ratings should reflect your personal experiences with the other members of your team. For any question where you have no basis for giving a rating or offering a suggestion for improvement, please leave it blank. If you offer suggestions, please make them specific and constructive.


Member Name _______________________ Always Usually Sometimes Rarely

1. Participates fully in team meetings, activities and decisions, 1 2 3 4
makes a contribution to the team's success.
Suggestions for improvement:


2. Effectively handles his/her fair share of team tasks (e.g., budget,
recordkeeping, clips, reports, notetaking, other team tasks.) 1 2 3 4
Suggestions:


3. Is a cooperative colleague, good to work with on joint
projects or activities. 1 2 3 4
Suggestio ns:


4. Honors the team and unit work norms (e.g. quality/quantity of work,
meeting deadlines, attendance at meetings, time at work, etc.) 1 2 3 4
Suggestions:


5. Communicates clearly in an open, honest and appropriate manner. 1 2 3 4
Suggestions:


Optional comments:
I think this person deserves a compliment for:



To improve his/her team contributions or work in the next six months, I suggestion this person work on:



Other comments:
Ground Rules for the Team Member Evaluation System

· You must put your name on the form, although names will not be attached to ratings or comments. "Anonymous" forms will be discarded and not considered.
· The overall goal is to give people feedback about how they have been performing as a team member over the last six months. If you have no opinio n or not enough recent experience with someone to make an evaluation about an item, please leave the question blank or mark it NA for Anot applicable. You do not have to fill out each item for each person every time.
· There is space for you to write comments below each item and also at the bottom on the back of the page. Writing comments is optional. If you make negative comments they should be specific and constructive so people will know how they can improve. Specific positive comments will also help people understand what they're doing right.
· Each team member will receive a tally of responses to each item and a typewritten page of the comments made by his/her fellow team members.