Team Management and Leadership
What to master
Lean Six Sigma projects succeed or fail on team dynamics. Know Tuckman's stages (forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning) and what a leader does at each - especially directing during storming rather than avoiding conflict. Understand team roles (leader/facilitator, sponsor, subject-matter experts, process owner, recorder) and why cross-functional membership matters.
Leadership and influence
- Situational leadership: adapt style (directing, coaching, supporting, delegating) to team maturity.
- Motivation: intrinsic vs. extrinsic; recognition tied to project outcomes.
- Conflict resolution modes: collaborating (win-win), compromising, accommodating, avoiding, competing - collaborating is generally preferred for project issues.
- Facilitation tools: brainstorming (with silent/affinity variants to avoid groupthink), multi-voting, nominal group technique, force-field analysis.
Traps in questions
- Choosing "avoiding" or "compromising" when the scenario clearly calls for win-win collaboration.
- Confusing facilitator (guides process, stays neutral) with leader (drives decisions).
- Ignoring groupthink and dominant personalities; silent brainstorming fixes this.
- Assuming conflict is bad - storming is normal and must be managed, not suppressed.
- Overlooking stakeholder analysis and communication planning.
Rule of thumb
When a team is stuck, diagnose the stage and the conflict source before adding tools. Use silent brainstorming + affinity + multi-voting to get broad input fast and fairly.
Worked example
A cross-functional team argues over root causes in a meeting while two members dominate. The leader should first use silent brainstorming to surface all ideas, then affinity-diagram and multi-vote to prioritize - this reduces domination and moves the team from storming toward norming.