Team Development Techniques for Team Reflection
In order to examine and possibly improve the structures and processes of team reflection, one must put on the table what the team ‘thinks about’, and where it simply ‘works’. Reflecting always means that one sees something as contingent. It could, in principal, also be different. A list of questions for team developments:
Which things are matter of course in the team and, therefore, are never thought about?
Which things are permanently thought about?
Are there emphasised areas of reflection/non-reflection? About problems? About conflicts and relationship patterns in the team? About synchronisation difficulties with plans or expectations amongst each other?
Are individuals excluded from such considerations? Why?
Are reflections prevented or abruptly stopped at certain points?
Who has the power to initiate reflection about topics or persons? Who is ignored?
Are there routines which make it easier to ‘raise’ certain topics or to ‘bury’ them?
Who profits from these routines? Who do they harm or hinder in the articulation of interests?
Is evaluation or influence exercised immediately during reflection? How much are topics and questions allowed to initially stay in abeyance? How quickly are questions encircled by answers?
Such questions and many more direct the attention to the ways and means of reflection and expose the communication patterns, within which reflection takes place, to observation. This is an activity, which does not happen too often in teams.