Question

When is the autonomous team structure most appropriate?

Answer 1

Similar to a individual with autonomy at work, an autonomous working group is a team of workers who are granted autonomy or freedom over the work they do within an organization. This autonomy involves autonomous decision-making relating to a particular work role, project or job and autonomous independence to delegate different tasks within the community to individual members.

During the later part of the 20th century, autonomous working groups became increasingly popular into the 21st century. This has been accomplished in tandem with attempts by other companies to get leaner, reducing mid-level management duplication. Working groups have been given the responsibility and supervision of different tasks within organizations and the right to take decisions that ultimately deliver the most desirable results on those tasks. The autonomy usually comes with full task freedom, aside from supervision and assessment by a supervisor or team leader.

The general aim of using autonomous working groups is that, generally, many people working together against a shared mission or project objective will come up with broader and better ideas that one person can work alone. Many advantages of autonomous working groups can include sharing roles, built-in employee support systems, better overall ideas and outcomes, innovative interactions, and a sense of belonging and value — all of which are essential elements of employee satisfaction at work.

Throughout the early 21st century, developments throughout digital technologies changed the essence of the autonomous community at work. In addition, thanks to opportunities for online communication, the working group may not even exist within the same physical office space. Many businesses have used electronic communication tools to connect employees across the world or the globe together. It can require collaborative work despite physical distance to employees with similar expertise or complementary expertise, depending on the team.