Team Building and Team Effectiveness: Developing High Performing Teams – Amsterdam, 11–15 Jan 2027

Programme overview

Introduction:

Many work teams stay a collection of individuals: goals are unclear, trust is thin, meetings drift and problems pass up to the manager instead of being solved together. Team building done as a one-off social event rarely changes this. This Core Concept course gives team leaders and HR and learning practitioners a structured method to diagnose one team, design and facilitate team development workshops with experiential activities and debriefs, and embed new routines afterwards. Participants run a team challenge simulation and leave with a team development workshop plan and a 90-day team development plan.

Course Objectives:

• Diagnose the development stage, strengths and gaps of an intact team using structured team assessment and interview data
• Apply team development models to decide which intervention a team needs at its current stage
• Design a team development workshop with clear outcomes, experiential activities, timings and debrief questions
• Facilitate team sessions that agree a team charter, working agreements, shared goals and mutual accountability routines
• Introduce collaboration and group problem-solving routines that hold across office, hybrid and mixed-function members
• Produce a team development workshop plan and a 90-day team development plan with measures of progress

Target Audience:

• Managers who lead an intact work team and own its results
• Team leaders forming a new team or taking over an existing one
• HR business partners who advise managers on team performance issues
• Learning and development staff who design and deliver team development sessions
• Internal facilitators and team coaches who run team offsites and away days
• Project and service managers responsible for the working climate of a delivery team

Course Outline:

Day 1: What Makes a Team Work and the Team Baseline

• Working Group Versus Real Team: Interdependence and Shared Outcome Test
• Team Effectiveness Research: Project Aristotle Findings on Team Norms
• Team Development Needs Interview Guide for Members and Sponsor
• Team Assessment Questionnaire Design and Scoring
• Team Baseline Profile: Strengths, Gaps and Priority Issues

Day 2: Team Development Models and Intervention Choice

• Tuckman Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning Stages
• Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model Seven Stages
• Hawkins Five Disciplines of Team Coaching
• Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle for Team Activities
• Intervention Selection Matrix by Team Stage and Presenting Issue

Day 3: Designing and Facilitating Team Development Workshops

• Workshop Design Canvas: Outcomes, Agenda, Timings and Materials
• Experiential Activity Selection: Trust, Communication and Collaboration Exercises
• Debrief Question Sets: What Happened, So What, Now What
• Team Charter and Working Agreements Facilitation Sequence
• Shared Goals and Mutual Accountability Board Setup

Day 4: Team Routines, Stuck Teams and Measuring Impact

• Hybrid Collaboration Protocol: Channels, Response Times and Meeting Rules
• Team Problem-Solving Huddle Using Root Cause and Action Log
• Team Dysfunction Warning Signs and Facilitator Intervention Scripts
• Offsite Risk Review: Forced Fun, Exclusion and Post-Event Drop-Off
• Team Development Impact Measures: Pulse Survey and Before-and-After Scores

Day 5: Team Challenge Simulation and the 90-Day Team Development Plan

• Team Challenge Simulation: Multi-Round Resource Task Under Time Pressure
• Simulation Debrief Facilitated by Participant Pairs
• Team Development Workshop Plan Drafting for an Own Team
• 90-Day Team Development Plan with Milestones and Measures
• Plan Presentation and Peer Critique Panel

Skills You Will Gain:

• Team Diagnosis
• Team Intervention Design
• Workshop Facilitation
• Experiential Activity Debriefing
• Team Charter Facilitation
• Mutual Accountability Routines
• Hybrid Team Collaboration
• Team Development Evaluation

Why Attend This Course:

• Leave with a team development workshop plan and a 90-day team development plan ready to use with your own team
• Run team sessions that change how people work together, not only how they feel on the day
• Practise leading and debriefing a team challenge under time pressure before facing a real group
• Compare team development practice with managers and HR practitioners from other sectors and countries

Conclusion:

Teams improve when their development is diagnosed, planned and followed through rather than left to an annual away day. This course moves from establishing a team baseline, through the models that explain how teams develop, to designing and facilitating workshops, charters, goals and routines, and then to handling stuck teams and measuring impact. The final day applies the method in a team challenge simulation and produces a team development workshop plan and a 90-day team development plan ready to take back to work.