Real Teams. Real Problems. Real Solutions.
Examples of how structured facilitation helps teams diagnose and solve their own coordination challenges.
Manufacturing Operations Team
Production department where three shifts couldn't coordinate handoffs. Information disappeared between shifts.
The Situation
Production team across three shifts. Each shift blamed the others for incomplete handoffs and missing information. Quality issues arose from coordination failures between shifts.
Diagnosis Session
Team identified that handoff documentation was incomplete, inconsistent, and often skipped during busy periods. No standard format. No accountability for information transfer.
Agreements Created
Team designed standardized handoff checklist. Agreed on minimum information required for each shift transition. Established five-minute overlap period for direct communication between shifts.
Practice Session
Shift leaders practiced difficult conversations about incomplete handoffs. Developed frameworks for addressing coordination failures without blame. Created escalation path for recurring problems.
Professional Services Branch Office
Regional office where senior and junior staff weren't communicating. Knowledge wasn't being shared.
The Challenge
Branch office with experienced professionals and recent hires. Junior staff hesitant to ask questions. Senior staff assumed juniors would speak up if they needed help. Knowledge gaps affecting client work.
What Emerged
Diagnosis revealed junior staff feared appearing incompetent. Senior staff felt too busy to proactively offer guidance. No structured mentoring. Informal communication channels unclear to new team members.
Team Solutions
Team created structured check-in schedule between senior and junior staff. Established "stupid question hour" where any question is welcomed. Documented common knowledge gaps and created reference materials.
Technology Development Team
Software team where developers and testers were in constant conflict. Releases consistently delayed.
Initial State
Developers felt testers were too rigid and slowed releases. Testers felt developers didn't take quality seriously. Mutual frustration affecting delivery timelines.
- Releases consistently missed deadlines
- Last-minute quality issues discovered
- Blame between functions
- Communication minimal and defensive
Root Issues
Diagnosis revealed testers brought in too late in development cycle. No shared understanding of quality standards. Different definitions of "ready for testing."
- Testing treated as final gate, not continuous process
- Quality criteria not defined upfront
- Developers surprised by test findings
- No joint ownership of release quality
Working Agreements
Team created "definition of ready" for testing. Established early tester involvement in feature planning. Agreed on quality standards before development starts.
- Testers review designs before coding begins
- Shared quality checklist for all features
- Daily sync between dev and test leads
- Joint responsibility for release decisions
Distributed Sales Team
Regional sales team where territories overlapped. Conflicts over client ownership and commission splits.
Territory Tensions
Sales team with unclear territory boundaries. Conflicts arose when clients had locations in multiple regions. Commission disputes created ongoing tension. Team avoided discussing the problem.
Diagnosis Process
Anonymous input revealed multiple unresolved commission conflicts. Team members avoiding certain accounts to prevent disputes. Lack of clear rules for multi-location clients hurting overall sales.
Territory Agreements
Team created clear rules for multi-location accounts. Established commission split formulas for collaborative sales. Defined escalation process for boundary disputes. Documented everything in writing.
Conflict Practice
Practice session focused on addressing territory conflicts directly. Team members practiced difficult conversations about past disputes. Developed frameworks for resolving future conflicts without management intervention.
Common Patterns
Themes that emerge across different teams and industries.
Unspoken Assumptions
Teams operate on different unstated assumptions about how work should happen. Diagnosis makes these assumptions visible so they can be aligned.
Avoided Conversations
Difficult topics accumulate over time. Structured practice sessions give teams frameworks and safety to address what's been avoided.
Unclear Accountability
Coordination failures often stem from unclear ownership. Written agreements with specific assignments eliminate ambiguity.
Communication Gaps
Teams lack shared understanding of when and how to communicate. Explicit agreements about communication channels and frequency reduce friction.
Discuss Your Team's Situation
Every team has unique challenges. Schedule a consultation to explore how structured facilitation can help.
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Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina