ASQ International Team Excellence Award (ITEA) 2008

Teaming for Success with ITEA
by Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies, Inc.
Dekkers@www.qualityplustech.com

Introduction

      We’ve all been to workshops where teamwork principles are taught through simulated case studies, and ultimately team building is not really learned.  Last week I attended preliminary judge’s training for ASQ’s International Team Excellence Award (ITEA) – and it truly was different.  Selected from an applicant pool of over 450 quality-centric professionals, I didn’t really know what I had signed up for when I received the acceptance e-mail from workshop facilitator Jeff Porada of Wyndham Vacation Ownership.  Jeff has been involved with the ITEA process for several years, first when it was within the scope of the AQP (Association for Quality and Participation) and now under the auspices of ASQ with whom AQP merged.  The assigned pre-work was non-trivial, the effort to attend two days of training and preliminary judging was entirely voluntary, and a firm commitment to attend and complete a conflict of interest form was required.  When the group of thirty-some strangers met for the first time on day one and departed as three cohesive teams committed to staying in touch over time and distance, even the most cynical quality gurus would have been impressed.  Here we were – all experts selected as preliminary ITEA judges to judge an actual team competition – and we witnessed ourselves having potential to become a high performance team already by the end of day 2.  This article highlights the ITEA competition and how the concept of teamwork pervaded the preliminary judging training and evaluation.  more...