Another word for running in the background
Who you assign to your tiger team will depend on the team’s objective and the problem to solve. However, a tiger team will typically include a small variety of subject-matter experts (often senior-level) from business development, operations, finance, legal, engineering, and even sales and marketing. Once the project is complete, the members of the tiger team disperse and return to their original departments and roles. Tiger teams may be formed to address projects that are failing or blocked in some way, or they could be formed to work on new projects developed in response to opportunities with high potential (e.g., high revenue or business potential). (In other words, you wouldn’t form a tiger team to tackle your regular day-to-day projects-think of them more like an elite force.) Tiger teams usually focus on important, high-profile, high-impact, mission-critical projects. Tiger teams are formed to help solve a critical issue after the most likely solutions have been attempted. Today, tiger teams are a popular and effective team structure for organizations who need a focused group of experts to manage technical deployments and solve complex issues. This “Tiger Team” later won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work on that successful mission. NASA formed a select technical team tasked with solving the issue and bringing the astronauts safely home. The term “tiger team” originates from the military and was made famous by NASA who deployed a tiger team during the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. During the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, part of the Service Module malfunctioned and exploded. What is a tiger team?Ī tiger team is a specialized, cross-functional team brought together to solve or investigate a specific problem or critical issue. Next time you’re facing “mission critical,” consider forming a tiger team to get in, get out, and get your business back on track. That’s when you should consider changing up your typical organizational structure and organizing tiger teams. In fact, small, agile teams of experts are often the key to solving your biggest issues. Big problems don’t always need big teams to solve them.