Bioteams 101: Introduction to Bioteams Principles
Stumble It!A Bioteam is a team which has a life of its own and requires an alternative model to traditional command and control. The Bioteam concept is introduced in The Bioteaming Manifesto, described in depth in Ken Thompson's book "Bioteams" and discussed daily in The Bioteams Blog.
There are 5 Bioteams "Zones". The Zones are listed in the broad sequence they should be addressed (starting with 1, then 2 etc) and each zone is broken down into a number of "Beliefs" or "Rules".
1. Beliefs Zone
2. Leadership Zone
3. Connectivity Zone
4. Execution Zone
5. Organization Zone
Beliefs Zone: Team beliefs about Co-operation, Consequences and Confidence
Belief 1. Clear and Public Accountability
Belief 2. Trusted Competency
Belief 3. Give and Take
Belief 4. Total Transparency
Belief 5. Shared Glory
Belief 6. Meaningful Mission Value
Belief 7. Outcome Optimism
Leadership zone: Treat every team member as a leader
Rule 1: Stop Controlling
Communicate information not orders
Rule 2: Team Intelligence
Mobilize everyone to look for and manage team threats and opportunities
Rule 3: Permission Granted
Achieve accountability through transparency not permission
Connectivity zone. Connect team members, partners and networks synergistically
Rule 4: Always-On
Provide 24*7 instant "in-situ" message hotlines for all team members
Rule 5: Symbiosis
Treat external partners as fully trusted team members
Rule 6. Cluster
Nurture the team's internal and external networks and connections
Execution zone. Experiment, cooperate and learn
Rule 7: Swarm!
Develop consistent autonomous team member behaviors
Rule 8: Tit-for-Tat
Team members must learn effective biological and interpersonal cooperation strategies
Rule 9: Genetic Algorithms
Learn through experimentation, mutation and team review
Organization zone. Establish sustainable self-organization
Rule 10: Self-Organizing Networks
Define the team in terms of "network transformations" - not outputs
Rule 11: Porous Membranes
Develop team boundaries that are open to energy but closed to waste
Rule 12. Emerge
Scale naturally through nature's universal growth and decay cycles
Useful Bioteams Links
Three common types of Bioteam: Business networks, Fan Communities and Mobile teams
The Networked Enterprise (TNE) Book
A Networked Enterprise is a Bioteam of independent collaborating businesses
*** Free Bioteams Tools ***
Bioteams Instant Need Assessment Tool
Bioteams Instant Operational Review Tool
About Ken Thompson
Ken Thompson is an expert practitioner in the area of bioteaming, swarming, virtual enterprise networks, virtual professional communities and virtual teams and has published two landmark books:
Bioteams: High Performance Teams Based on Nature's Best Designs
The Networked Enterprise: Competing for the future through Virtual Enterprise Networks
Ken writes the highly popular bioteams blog which has over 500 articles on all aspects of bioteams (aka organizational biomimicry) - in other words how human groups can learn from nature's best teams.
Ken is also founder of an exciting European technology company Swarmteams which provides unique patent-pending bioteaming technologies for all shapes and sizes of groups, social networks, business clusters, virtual/mobile communities and enterprises. Swarmteams enables groups to be more responsive and agile by fully integrating their mobile phones and the web with bioteam working techniques.
The latest Swarmteams implementation is SwarmTribes which helps social object owners (e.g. musicians/bands, sports teams, film-makers) and good cause sponsors (e.g. Volunteering, Environmental, Public Health) to form unique collaborations with their fans/supporters for mutual benefit.
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Bioteams Books Reviews
Organisational teams: thin slice for responsiveness
Humans and animals do not need complete information to act; they can operate on various clues provided there is a sufficient context. Organizational teams can also use this thin slicing technique in conjunction with short messaging to enhance their performance. Malcolm Gladwell’s introspective book Blink digs deep into the abyss of human cognition to illustrate the human ability to think at a subconscious level. The idea of thin slicing is used where one is introduced to only a few snippets of information which lead to a series of conclusions based on moments of rapid cognition – an ability claimed to be intrinsically dormant in most humans. By bioteams guest author Max Bhanabhai.
Buy it now from:
Amazon.Com
Amazon.Co.UK
Related Bioteams Features Articles
The End of Management and the Rise of Bioteams
In his new book, Dot Cloud: The 21st Century Business Platform, Peter Fingar suggests that if we stick with our current pyramid-style designs of our organizations, we will not be able to meet the growing needs of our communities in the high-change global economy and concludes that the discipline of bioteaming offers a vision of what successful teaming experiences look like in the interconnected world of the 21st century.
The six key processes in a biological team
In traditional organisational teams we have processes like selection, mobilisation, planning, operations and dissolution. Bioteams have a totally different set of natural processes: Foraging, Co-Evolution, Reproduction, Nurture, Maintenance and Metabolism.
Team Swarming: are your team wasps or bees
Sometimes the Bee-team is the A-team: the importance of an automatic team swarm response to threats and opportunities.
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