Team Management by Objectives: Enhancing DevelopingTeams' Performance

TLDR

The study aimed to determine whether Drucker’s management by objectives could be integrated with Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development. The authors examined relevant literature, discussed limitations and implications, and suggested avenues for future research. They found that combining MBO with the development stages produces the team management by objectives (TMBO) framework, which resolves many pitfalls of team management, offers novel insights, and indicates that the underlying theories, while somewhat dated, merit further examination.

Abstract

The objective of this investigation was to determine if Drucker’s management by objectives (or MBO) could be merged with Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development. We achieved our objective by examining relevant literature and found that these theories are somewhat dated, but deserve further examination. When combined, they resolve many pitfalls of managing teams for improved performance. MBO meshes well with the team development stages to provide novel insights about managing developing teams. The resulting perspective is called team management by objectives (or TMBO). We discuss the limitations and implications of this work, and suggest possibilities for future research.