Someone once asked me how I could tell whether a team needed building. Here's my list of 25 symptoms. If your team has more than a couple of these, we need to talk!

1. a few people within the team dominate all discussions
2. work is duplicated and wheels a re-invented
3. "agreed" points are re-opened for discussion later
4. everyone thought someone else was going to do it
5. "humour" is used to mask differences of viewpoint
6. people do not regard team meetings as valuable
7. few new ideas are generated
8. criticism is aimed at people instead of their ideas
9. people won't raise their concerns until after the meeting
10. team members' departments compete with each other
11. differences of opinion on who is the leader
12. discussions focus on blame rather than solution
13. meetings blindly stick to the same agenda every time
14. meetings are cancelled if the manager can't be there
15. meetings consist of tedious presentations of data
16. people can't explain how their work fits into the whole
17. people can't explain how others' work fits into the whole
18. managers aren't inspired to share meeting news with their own teams
19. nobody reads the reports before the meeting
20. members do not meet outside formal meetings
21. no-one can state the mission of the team of the purpose of its meetings
22. meetings are held even though none is needed
23. different departments are told different stores about what happened
24. high turnover of team members
25. reluctance to allow outsiders into meetings