Realistic evaluation of the Flexmonitor, a team program to maintain and reflect on flexibility

Area of Science:

• Healthcare management
• Team dynamics
• Organizational psychology

Background:

• Dynamic healthcare environments necessitate team flexibility.
• Balancing flexibility and consistency is challenging for healthcare teams, particularly during crises.
• Effective methods are required for teams to create, monitor, and maintain flexibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the Flexmonitor, a practice-based program designed to assist healthcare teams in developing and maintaining flexibility.
• To refine the Flexmonitor program using realistic evaluation and identify components for future team flexibility initiatives.

Main Methods:

• A practice-based program, the Flexmonitor, was evaluated.
• Realistic evaluation methodology was employed to refine the program.
• The study focused on how teams develop and maintain flexibility.

Main Results:

• The Flexmonitor facilitates monitoring of implicit criteria, differing interpretations, and beliefs among team members to enhance flexibility.
• It tracks team behavior and its impact on self-defined indicators, enabling discussions on flexibility definitions.
• Teams were observed to be unable to effectively self-manage their flexibility using the Flexmonitor.

Conclusions:

• The study contributes to understanding self-managing teams and their capacity for managing team flexibility.
• Findings highlight limitations in team members' ability to autonomously take responsibility for team flexibility.
• The research provides insights into the practical application and limitations of tools designed to foster team adaptability.