Living cultural change in government

A line organization in a Federal Agency developed a strategy for adapting to a smaller workforce and tighter budgets. This strategy included empowering its workforce to accommodate fewer levels of management. One suitable tactic for empowering employees was Self-Managed Teams (SMT). Senior management within the Agency and Union officials agreed to conduct a prototype to determine if SMTs were an appropriate approach and, if it was, how to successfully implement them. After reviewing the available literature on SMTs and benchmarking a series of public and private organizations, seven criteria were identified to address the decision of whether or not to further implement teaming. These seven areas are: the voluntary nature of successful teams; the cost of developing teams; the organizational commitment and support necessary; effective training; awareness; management and union partnership support; and the team development process. This paper examines the status of these seven areas approximately 18 months into the SMT Prototype process and describes the original design, implementation, and lessons learned. These lessons learned are intended to assist other organizations who are in the early stages of team design or development.