Some teams become so focused on their goal that they ignore process planning, and thus reach that goal (if they do) at much higher costs than necessary. At the other extreme are those so wedded to process that they lose sight of the work's purpose, delivering outputs that do not meet the recipients' needs. What is the correct balance point between process and outcome?
Business researcher Anita Woolley of Carnegie Mellon University tested 90 3-person student teams by asking each to build a model of a house and pool using building blocks. Without knowing they were being treated differently, some teams first did worksheets focused on roles, task assignments, and brainstorming—process, in other words. Other teams were given the game's scoring sheet to review instead, and asked to prioritize among the ways to score and set point goals. This put their focus on the outcome. A third set (the "control group") did neither. Then the teams were put to work for 40 minutes. Among those three sets of teams, some had a new member added about halfway through, others lost a third of their blocks at that point, and a third had no change.
The early focus attempts worked and affected the teams' discussions throughout the game. Both process or outcome teams talked about outcomes while working, but the outcome teams talked about these at much higher levels—strategic outcomes ("generating as much profit as possible") rather than tactical ("designing an advertisement").
For teams with no mid-point change, the extra planning of both process and outcome teams helped them perform better than the control groups, but each focus was equally good. The same was true when a member was lost. But outcome teams did better than process teams when blocks were lost. Having a more outcome-focused and higher-level approach to outcomes helped teams adapt their processes to the change.
Note that these were very short tests; a year-long project team may act differently. However, based on other research, Woolley's advice to managers seems reasonable. She said they should "pay attention to how they structure early team meetings and the relative emphasis they place on processes versus outcomes."
Source: Woolley, A. (09), "Means vs. Ends: Implications of Process and Outcome Focus for Team Adaptation and Performance," Organization Science 20(3):500.
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