Communication.  Teamwork.  Success.

(Click the highlighted words for relevant team communication resources)

Teams and teamwork exist for a variety of reasons, and the most effective teams are usually credited with increasing productivity, delivering superior decisions, leveraging greater buy-in and reducing resistance to change in the organizations that use them.  The advantages of working in teams are numerous.

Indeed, communication in teams is no cakewalk.  Conflicts in teams are frequent and come in all shpes and sizes, and proper management techniques should be applied.  Teams aren't always 100% productive - most theorists agree that successfull teams must go through a series of development stages - forming, storming, norming, performing - in order to be truly productive, and a good communicator will recognize these stages and assist the team in moving through them.  

It takes a lot of proactive and refined organizational work to be an effective and communicating team, and a lot of that work takes place before, during and after frequent, and so one should take care to ensure productive meetings.

Certainly, a key ingredient to successful project management involves effective communication across diverse teams of project members, and new tools that have emerged in today's digitally-enabled world should be used to facilitate collaboration both within projects and in other types of teams, especially when the team's nature is virtual, as there can be a significant amount of difficulty experienced when communicating across the digital divide.

If you'd like a cheat-sheet for building an effective and communicating team, you've come to the right place - check out our 10 Must Knows, or peruse our bibliography of excellent team communication resources .   As a bonus, don't miss a vist to an excellent forum we recommend at TeamBuildingTips.com and feel free to pose a question or submit your own suggestion.