Comment: Often complex or elusive problems arise that require a special look. Tiger teams are one way to achieve this special look. The tiger team is a short term specialized team. The more diverse the team's expertise the more precise and accurate the solution possible.
Tiger Teams Improve Outcomes
Many companies have hired consultants to solve a problem, analyze situations, and inject fresh ideas into their organizations. A challenge with consultants is they often have preferences for solutions, can be product evangelists, and are limited to thier own experiences and education. Essentially, consultants are one or a few persons in a crowd. The book Wisdom of Crowds, by author James Surowiecki, presents the concept that a crowd is smarter and wiser than any one person in the crowd. The notion goes further as crowds have network models that possess probabilistic outcomes based on Baynesian mathematical principles. Surowiecki offers an example in which there was a down US Navy submarine in the Atlantic whose location was unknown. In a rush to locate the submarine a Navy Commander assembled several teams of various knowledge bases to locate the down submarmine. The best individual estimate was out of the playing field. The best team was miles away. When all the team estimates were take into account through Baynesian mathematical formulation the estimate was off by feet. The conclusion is that the crowd of experts was far more accurate than anyone person in the crowd. How can a business apply the concept in a cost effective manner?
The tiger team has been the solution for solving complex issues. The concept originated from aerospace design efforts in which the complex interrelated issues of spacecraft and aircraft design were vetted and resolved. Since then the tiger team has spread to a variety of other technical fields to include emergency management and information technology. However, the tiger team can be utilized in nearly any business setting.
When assembling a tiger team, members are selected for their expertise in a specialized area of knowledge. Member character traits include energy level, imagination, and creativity. Team members may use mind tools of combinatory play, image streaming, mind mapping, and other instruments of creativity and imagination. The use of multiple teams could be pitted against each other. For example, in the military the Red Team is the enemy and the Blue Team are allied forces. In business, the Red Team could be a direct competitor or market forces against the company or supply chain who is a Blue Team. The ultimate goal of a Tiger Team is to stress the imagination in order to vet out new market possibilites or harden the business against austere business conditions.
Tiger Teams have been incorrectly used as well. Tiger teams should not firefight gapped business issues, expedite operational shortfalls, or as a think tank. The Tiger Team is different than a Think Tank. Think tanks are purely intellectual and folly with theory based or radical thinking approaches. The tiger team is more normative thinking having direct affects on immediate issues. Think tanks are also more long term. Also the tiger team should not be a long term solution or institutionalized as a stable routine process in the operations. This is a misuse of the tiger team.
Correctly utilizing tiger teams, organizations can improve outcomes over the use of a consultant or consultation groups. Tiger teams, if structured, properly can reduce bias and produce more reliable results. Organizations utilizing Six Sigma may already be utilizing the Tiger Team to some extent. However, the Six Sigma team is often limited to "Champions", "Master Black Belts", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", along with local or internal staff. They may understand and mentor the process but can introduce bias into the solution. Tiger Teams resource people based on their expertise and not so much their locality to the problem.
Sailors always start their stories with, "This is the honest truth so help me God." Well, this is really a true story so help me God. In Jacksonville, Fl a large organization was conducting Six Sigma / lean continuous improvement projects in order to find cost savings. In the airframe shop was a 55 gallon drum that collected water. The water needed to be checked every day then dumped if any water had collected. The over the years staff turned over and several Six Sigma teams had come through looking for cost saving measures. At first, a hose was placed on the drum to replace the manpower required to check and dump the accummulated water. Then a sump pump was added at some point to deal with the rapid intake of water at times in order to prevent flooding. Six Sigma teams did analysis indicating that with regular preventive maintenance schedules pump failures could be reduced thus saving more money. Over the years the barrel showed up in executive level briefings being herald as cost saving successes. This alleged success coupled with others was not showing the cost savings they were hoping to achieve. So leadership commissioned a tiger team. One of the first actions of the Tiger Team was to question why was the barrel collecting water in the first place. As it turned out, many years prior the organization had constrained budgets and could not afford to repair the roof so the barrel was emplaced to collect water from the leak. The early installation had a drip pans fashioned from scrap aluminum sheets to collect the water in the rafters then duct the water into the barrel. The Tiger team suggested repairing the roof and eliminating the barrel altogether. Being close to the problem presents some challenges in finding the correct solution. Tiger teams are most often outside the processes offering stronger perspectives.
References:
Surowiecki, J (2005). Wisdom of crowds. Anchor books. New York.
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