Teamwork has always been considered a critical component of completing complex projects that require significant improvement. The process of teamwork has been well-documented, but teamwork is still often elusive. Why?

When teams succeed, it’s often for the following reasons:

• Strong leadership
• Well-defined goals
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Commitment
• Effective meetings
• Action plans
• Good communicationThe team model is like a wheel, with the hub as the goal and the spokes representing links with various team members. The model will work when the action items are broken down for individual team members. But what happens when the action items are such that a sub-team is needed, or when the action item requires support from a distant or remotely connected department, or even from a supplier or customer? For today’s globally dispersed corporate operations, it’s quite possible that some Six Sigma projects require working with people under such scenarios. This kind of teamwork requires collaboration.

  When considering successful teams, it’s clear that the key component of good teamwork is collaboration. According to definitions found on the Internet, teamwork and collaboration are described as follows:

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