Does anyone know of any studies which provide hard evidence that short term project teams (under a year in duration) are more successful or productive when they have a team start up process? By team start up process I mean a designed process that helps team members learn about team processes (such as a form, storm, norm, perform model), helps them define roles and responsibilities as a group, teaches them decision making models, and provides initial meeting facilitiation.

I have read the abstracts of CSWT projects by Stacey Flax and Eugene Royal, Jr., which seem to indicate that there is little empirical evidence of the value of interpersonal training or team skills respectively. The Royal abstract does speculate on long term improvement based on team skills.

-- Ali N. Stroud (al.n.stroud@ccmail.irs.gov), August 04, 1998