Teamwork: meeting the challenges of integrated system development.

• Author: King, Chris
• Position: Teamwork at Orange County Fire Authority

The Orange County Fire Authority utilized principles of teamwork to complete a complex, 18-month project - designing and implementing an integrated financial/human resources system - in six months.

In their book The Wisdom of Teams (Harvard Business School Press, 1993), Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, define a team as

a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

In light of this definition, the term "team" is often misused in business or local government. Management may say they have created a team, but often it is simply a collection of staff with various personal and business agendas and lacking a strong commitment to each other.

The performance advantage of a true team lies in the strength and synergy created among its members. A daunting project - seemingly unattainable to a common working group - becomes doable to a true team. A team is highly motivated by commitment to a challenge, accountability to themselves and others on the team, shared decision making, and trust by top management that the team can make good decisions without close supervision. A highly motivated, self-managed team can be an effective tool for completing difficult financial projects, as evidenced by a team at the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) in California. OCFA's multidisciplinary team successfully developed and implemented an integrated financial/human resources system on a fast-track timeline.

The OCFA Team's Formation

Orange County's bankruptcy in late 1994 brought financial instability to all county departments, including the fire department, which had been considering becoming an independent agency for several years. The bankruptcy's potential impact on critical fire and emergency services for the unincorporated areas of the county and 18 contract cities was not lost on local government leadership. The bankruptcy provided final impetus to the fire department becoming the independent Orange County Fire Authority in March 1995.

Upon formation of OCFA, the county agreed to provide the authority's payroll processing, general accounting, investment, and human resources administration on an interim basis. The county later notified OCFA that this support would be extended only through the end of 1996. OCFA would have to provide its own accounting, payroll, treasury, and human resources functions by January 1, 1997. This required the installation of a financial/human resources system (FHRS).

The group that was assembled to implement the authority's FHRS embodied several key characteristics of a team as described by Katzenbach and Smith:

* performance challenge,

* small size,

* complementary technical and interpersonal skills,

* mutual accountability,

* team-centered leadership, and

* work-approach agreement.

Performance Challenge

Performance challenges set a team in motion. Team members perform with emotional and physical energy when responding to an inspiring challenge. Common working groups become true teams if performance challenges give the members a meaningful goal to strive to achieve.

OCFA was, in essence, a start-up local government with no preexisting comprehensive financial system. Although the talent...