Tiger Teams: How to Solve Critical Problems

The concept of a Tiger Team is not new. But it might be just the approach you need in order to solve a problem that is severely detrimental to:

• Your customers
• Your ability to deliver services
• Your company’s reputation and wallet

Let’s take a look at how to use tiger teams successfully.

(This article is part of our IT Leadership & Best Practices Guide. Use the right-hand menu to navigate.)

What is a tiger team?

A tiger team is a group of cross-functional experts brought together to solve a specific problem or critical issues.

According to a 1964 definition, a tiger team consists of:

‘A team of undomesticated and uninhibited technical specialists, selected for their experience, energy, and imagination, and assigned to track down relentlessly every possible source of failure in a spacecraft subsystem.’

These teams had been pulled together in military and other settings for many years but came to public attention dramatically in 1970 when NASA brought together a tiger team who were charged with bringing the astronauts aboard the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft back to earth alive.

How tiger teams work

You don’t have a pre-determined tiger team that you call together every time you have a critical issue you are struggling to solve. The team that solves one issue is very unlikely to be the same team—with the same skillsets—that solves the next issue.

Instead, a tiger team will be handpicked for the situation you are facing at that time. Participants in a tiger team might include any mix of:

• Internal staff
• Vendors
• Subject matter experts who are not connected to your organisation

Tiger teams will be assigned to investigate possible solutions to unique situations or problems. Any team will be populated with mature experts who:

• Appreciate the criticality of the task they are facing
• Understand what needs to be done
• Work well with others
• Demonstrate strengths including a diversity of knowledge, a single focus/purpose, and organizational agility

Crucially, the people in your tiger team must be removed from the grind of business as usual. You cannot afford for them to be distracted by their day jobs. Their full attention needs to be applied to resolving the issue at hand. (This ensures full focus and maximum efficiency, saving time and money in the long run.)

Once the tiger team completes the assigned task—solving the issue—the team will be disbanded. Its members will go back to their normal roles.

(Explore IT teams you might draw upon for your tiger team.)