Robert D. Doering (“An Approach Toward Improving the Creative Output of Scientific Task Teams,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, February 1973, pp. 29–31,

© 1973 IEEE) commented that:

The team leader’s role is crucial. He is directly involved and must know the individual team members well, not only in terms of their technical capabilities but also in terms of how they function when addressing a problem as part of a group. The technical competence of a potential team member can usually be determined from information about previous assignments, but it is not so easy to predict and control the individual’s interaction within and with a new group, since it is related to the psychological and social behavior of each of the other members of the group as a whole.

What the leader needs is a tool to measure and characterize the individual members so that he can predict their interactions and structure his task team accordingly.

Is such a test possible for people working in a project environment? Are there any project organizational forms that would be conducive for such testing?