Teams have become one of the most common organizational structures in modern business. Project teams have been used to manage specific time- and budget-defined scopes of work for many years. The success of joint ventures and alliances has long depended on the ability to form an effective team that drew from all of the participating companies. The success of teams as an organizational tool has led to the use of a team approach in almost all aspects of business operations. Unfortunately, not all teams are created equal.

A team is by definition a group of people, usually from a variety of backgrounds, brought together to achieve a specific task or purpose. A highly effective team is able to combine the skills and experience of its members to create a result that is greater than the group might have achieved working as individuals. The factors that contribute to a successful team are many and complex. A team development process seeks to help a team move efficiently from being a collection of individuals to become an effective, high-performing team. Stratos, LLC consultants have worked in the teambuilding or team development area for many years. From that experience, they have created and refined the Stratos Team Development Process.

Effective teams represent a tremendous asset to any company. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) conducted a study of a number of construction project teams and determined that an effective teambuilding process could save as much as seven percent of total installed cost on a project. CII considers teambuilding to be one of their industry best practices. The Stratos approach to team development emphasizes the creation of team metrics to measure the benefits of the teambuilding process. Stratos has developed a number of tools for teams to use in various aspects of the team development process. The Stratos team development process and some of the supporting tools are explained in the Team Assessment, Team Development, Team Process, and Virtual Teams sections.