Making people work skillfully together with the support of the TeamFluent tool

Collaboration skills and the mastery of teamwork practices are regarded as essential in the current world of work, study and everyday life. There is already a wealth of research-based knowledge available about the features that characterize a successful team, including a safe, encouraging and curious atmosphere, equal participation, active communication, constructive and respectful interaction, open sharing of information and listening to others, shared visions and goals, helping others, and acceptance of criticism and reflection (Hoegl & Gemuenden, 2001; Broussard, La Lopa & Ross-Davis, 2007; Decuyper, Dochy & Van den Bossche, 2010; West, 2014). Competencies related to interaction and collaboration are emphasized in curricula worldwide (Voogt et al., 2012), but educators lack pedagogical methods supporting them in educational settings (Lakkala et al., 2015). Similarly, in workplace contexts there is a need for methods and instruments that enable the evaluation and improvement of team performance seamlessly integrated into existing group work practices. In the demonstration, we will introduce a digital solution, TeamFluent (https://www.teamfluent.eu/), as a research-based tool for educators, team leaders and team facilitators to promote the evaluation and improvement of collaboration practices in teams as part of daily work. TeamFluent is a modular, web-based survey instrument that can be used a single time or repeatedly for self- and co-reflection of one’s own or the whole team’s behavior contextually in collaboration situations. The facilitator can construct each survey flexibly tailored to the context by choosing the themes and perspectives according to the goals and needs of the team. The survey items and themes have been created through extensive empirical research and piloting. After responding, each respondent gets immediate feedback about their own results compared with the team averages, which is a good starting point for joint discussions. The facilitator can examine the results from multiple perspectives and can take up issues to be considered together related to the strengths and points for improvement in team behaviour and practices. The demonstration includes the introduction of the design principles behind TeamFluent, a presentation of its main features and discussion about its possibilities in promoting the development of teamwork skills and practices in educational and workplace contexts.