Dynamic teams in SAP SuccessFactors

Dynamic teams are not a new concept and are gaining increasing popularity in organizations. It’s worth distinguishing between traditional, agile, and dynamic teams. Traditional teams often have a formal organizational structure and a designated leader (line manager), and members typically represent similar specializations and follow a defined workflow. Agile teams, always with a formal leader (Scrum Master), operate methodically within sprints, with frequent adjustments to the scope and direction of work.

Dynamic teams most often do not have a formal leader, their members represent different specialties (they come from different departments of the organization) and are set up to carry out a specific project. Once the goal is achieved (completion of the project), they disband.

Intuition tells us that dynamic teams have tremendous motivational potential: they offer employees a sense of purpose (mission), give them the greatest autonomy in project execution (members are not constrained by the corset of procedures or formal methodology), and allow them to grow. A sense of mission, autonomy and the pursuit of mastery are the three pillars of motivation 3.0, as described by Daniel Pink in “Drive."

Nearly 40% of respondents indicated that their dynamic teams usually consist of 5-7 people, which seems to be the optimal number from a management perspective. Projects run by dynamic teams rarely last longer than a year (almost 60% of respondents indicate a period of no more than 6 months). Most dynamic teams (90%) have one or more leaders, formal or informal.

SAP research shows that working in dynamic teams has, according to employees, a positive impact on their motivation, career and attachment to the company. Unfortunately, often the organizational culture puts up a number of barriers to the development of such a form of cooperation. According to managers, their subordinates have less time to perform their core tasks while participating in dynamic teams. Managers are also concerned about employees leaving for other departments. Employees do not feel sufficiently appreciated for the results produced by dynamic teams. The aforementioned barriers can only be removed by working systematically to change the organizational culture.

There are a number of challenges for dynamic teams that we can address with the support of technology. In particular, these include:

SAP SuccessFactors supports dynamic teams throughout their lifecycle. From recruitment, to team building, to mission execution, to project completion.

Dynamic team members have access to a dashboard with key project information (goals, key deliverables, roles, etc.).

Wanting to start looking for people who have the required skills, the dynamic team developer can define the requirements for the expected roles and publish them in the SF Opportunity Marketplace.

Employees can search listings for dynamic teams and apply for roles that interest them.

A key functionality of SF Dynamic Teams is support for OKRs (objectives & key results).

In the OKR approach, the qualitative goal is the mission (it’s meant to warm you up, encourage and motivate you), and the key results help determine how you’re approaching it. The OKR method, created at Intel and heavily promoted at Google, is derived from MBO (management by objectives). ąOKRs are definitely more suitable for defining goals and monitoring results in a dynamic team. The basic differences in the MBO and OKR approaches are shown in the table.

If we wanted to translate the MBO’s goal of “Create an inclusive workplace" into OKRs, we could do it like this:

• Goal: Let’s create an inclusive workplace!
• OKR 1: Prepare a DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) plan.
• OKR 2: Organizing two workshop sessions on diversity, equality and inclusion with 90% attendance.
• OKR 3: Lead to the hiring of two differentiating team members each in three departments.

Dynamic Teams data is available in the primary reporting tool in SuccessFactors – People Analytics. A new data source, Dynamic Teams, enables the creation of summaries with information about team members, goals and key results.

SAP has announced further features in its roadmap to support dynamic teams. Among the most interesting features are:

• sharing team member calendars,
• connection to the training system – training and materials from SF LMS can be added to the dynamic team space,
• visibility of dynamic team assignments in the organizational chart,
• intelligent recommendation of roles and the best candidates for these roles in the dynamic team.

Activating SF Dynamic Teams does not require an SF Employee Central subscription (access to the SAP SuccessFactors platform is sufficient). To use the goal and key result management (OKR) features, customers must have a SF Performance & Goals subscription. Posting jobs on the SF Opportunity Marketplace also requires appropriate licenses.

SF Dynamic Teams addresses the growing need to support the smooth transition of employees from one project (mission) to the next, regardless of their position in the organizational structure. Dynamic teams, unlike any other, have the potential to motivate and deliver outstanding results, especially when their missions revolve around innovation.

As employees of a company that provides innovative solutions, we recommend this method of organizing internal projects. Of course, not all missions allow participants to be freed from the constraints of methodology or procedures, so in some cases, traditional and agile teams are more appropriate.