GDQ Short enables team development to be made available in more contexts:
– Organisations with limited resources can offer team development work to both management teams and operational teams.
– Agile teams with the expectation of managing themselves.
– Large-scale projects with recurring measurements.
– Learning about team development in new contexts.
– Research projects
How does GDQ – Short differ from a full-scale GDQ?
In GDQ Short, the number of statements has been reduced to 13 items (compared to the original 60 items). Also, the instrument requests no demographic information and does not examine the subjective perception of productivity in the team. Nevertheless, the statements contained in the survey capture the four stages: Dependency and Inclusion, Counterdependency and Fight, Trust and Structure and Work and Productivity. GDQ Short has been evaluated in an article with a number of subsidiary studies, all of which note the existence of a large overlap with a full-scale GDQ.
One challenge faced by organisational consultants is motivating team members to fill in questionnaires. Offering shorter forms increases the chances that participants will set aside time and engage in data collection.
The smaller number of questions in a GDQ Short questionnaire means that no sub-scale analyses or sub-group analyses can be generated from the data collected. Nor does the tool capture certain aspects such as statements linked to leadership like a full-scale GDQ does. A full-scale GDQ is a tool that is better suited in cases where supporting data for interventions is to be collected for more detailed analysis. This is because many more aspects of group dynamics can be included in a full-scale GDQ in order to guide the group’s work going forward.
What does a GDQ Short report contain?
The report contains a theoretical summary of each developmental stage, the group’s results compared with norm data and a diagnosis of the group’s stage. The report concludes with debriefing questions such as “What change does the group want to make in the current way of working during the next working period?” in order to encourage reflection and work on change using the measurement results as a point of departure.