The GTPQ™ is a diagnostic tool which measures process changes over time on global and distance teams. It has also been used for intact, local teams. For more information about our teamdevelopment services please click here .

Please order a free copy of a sample iteration of the GTPQ™ here.

Find a GTPQ™-sample to complete online at the ITAP International webpage. Follow the links to the GTPQ.

Background

The GTPQ™ has been used extensively (over 100 administrations with global teams) with pharmaceutical companies as well as in the chemical, consumer products, and information technology industries. It was designed and developed in 1995 by ITAP International (John Bing (2000)) and supported by a global operating pharmaceutical company. It was first used by three teams of scientists over a period of two years. These were global teams who met every six months to work on a similar project: The design of protocols to reduce cycle times in their areas of the R&D process.
In the following time the GTPQ™ was permanently developed by application and research.

Due to its modular structur the GTPQ™ is a flexible instrument which can be taylored to the specific needs of your team.

The GTPQ™ measures human processes and their change over time to provide both the team leaders and the members of a team important information about change processes and the need for interventions to improve the efficiency and productivity.
To build teams the GTPQ™ has proven to be a most succesful tool.

Product Usage

• To determine the level of process effectiveness on global/virtual teams.
• To measure the level of process effectiveness on such teams over time.
• To compare process effectiveness to productivity.
• To diagnose the type of training intervention that will be most effective in improving a team's process effectiveness.
• To compare the process effectiveness of different global teams working on the same or similar project.
• To compare process effectiveness on specific global teams with norms in the same industry.

Benefits

• Participants are provided with their team profile which they can compare to other teams and/or to their own subsequent future profiles.
• The skills, attitudes and processes which most impact the team's effectiveness are identified and explored
• Participants learn to recognize the impact of team process on the output of global teams.
• The barriers and pathways to improved team effectiveness are identified and analyzed.

Usage

The questionnaire is typically provided to global teams before, during and after actual (as distinct from virtual) team meetings. provides the process intervention support and project support is provided by company management.

Because each project is different and distinct, prefers to develop individualized solutions to each company's global team process issues.

Idea & Structure

At first the GTPQ™'s idea was oriented at Brannick et al. (1997:20ff.) where seven core components of team work are identified and regarded as benchmarks for measuring teamwork with respect to effectivity and processes: Communication, Team orientation, Leadership, Monitoring, Feedback, Backup-Behavior, Co-ordination. With respect to its occurrence this categories were regarded as a scale for the effectiveness and the process of a team. The hands-on experience with the tool and its statistical validation led to the definition of six categories which are measured with the GTPQ™ and serve as criteria for the validation of team processes:

• Internal Communication: the core element of the teamprocess, provides the relation between the team members by exchange of information

• External Communication: communicative exchange with other teams or departments of the company / organization / project

• Language & Culture: impact of lingual and / or cultural diversity on the team process and the co-operation

• Memeber Development: describes the options and the effects of technical and social competence development of the team members

• Team Fundamentals: elements which have proved to be essential for the existence and the operations of a team

• Organizational Alignment: describes to which extend the concerns of the team, the team members attitude and the targets of the team are represented within the team; to which extend team members regard themselves as a part of the whole and provide and accept mutual assistance

The GTPQ™ involves three parts:

1. A set of at least 25 Likert-scaled questions, so to say the core part. The pool of proven questions allows to add 50 more items on request but a limitation is recommended.
2. Questions which are developed for each specific team, since each team has distinct process characteristics which require measurement.
3. Narrative questions focusing on qualitative aspects of the teamprocess.

Crucial elements of the measurement and the team process are according to Bing (2000): personal styles, stages of development, effective team functioning, stage of professional development, national culture, corporate culture, functional culture.

In addition to the already mentioned literature the author's understanding of intercultural workplaces and cultures of organizations refers to the concepts of Hall (1989), Adler (1986), Hofstede (1980, 1997b) und Trompenaars / Hampden-Turner (2000).