Team structure

Definition (1):

An organizational structure in which the entire organization is made up of workgroups or teams is called team structure. In this structure, employee empowerment is crucial because there is no line of managerial authority from top to bottom.

Definition (2):

“Team structure refers to the composition of an individual team or of a multi-team system.” It is an integral part of the process of teamwork. A well-structured team is the outcome of and ensures effective leadership, communication, mutual support, and situation monitoring.

As opposed to conventional organizational structures in which they had various departments for every business activity, nowadays a firm’s daily activities move around teams. There are production teams, or marketing teams, or sales teams, or research and development teams, or whichever team it may be, teams are flexible and are able to build products, strike deals, negotiate prices, provide services, and coordinate projects, etc. There are mainly six types of team structures that can be found in any organization:

• Problem-Solving Teams: Basically, this type of team consists of a few team members, say from 5 to 12. The members belong to a specific department who come together weekly for discussing and solving problems of their department operations.
• Cross-Functional Teams: When officials belonging to a similar organizational level but from different business operations come together for achieving a common operation, the team is known as a cross-functional team.
• Self-Managed Teams: Problem-solving teams can recommend solutions, but don’t have the authority for implementing them. Self-managed teams are formed to overcome this challenge because they not only discuss issues but also are liable for implementing the solutions and for their outcomes.
• Virtual Teams: In today’s era of mobile technologies and the internet, it is simpler to manage remote members with the virtual team concept.
• Matrix Structure: Most organizations follow this structure for building their teams. Basically, it combines the product and functional departmentalization.
• Bureaucratic Teams: These teams are formed around greatly routine tasks with formal rules and regulations. These teams’ tasks’ nature is highly specialized and decision-making follows a specific chain of command.