Formal: Formal teams are inherently built upon a clearly defined structure where each member has a clear role. The goals and objectives held by formal teams always tend to have a clear finishing point. In most formal teams there is some kind of monitoring system set in place in order to ensure that goals/objectives are achieved on time for the deadline (if a deadline had been set).
Formal teams will usually have the baking of senior members of the group (i.e. management) and are usually by the senior member in order to solve a specific problem or issue.
An example of this would be a multi-agency safer city partnership team (e.g. the “Safer City Partnership” ~ by the city of London) who work together across a large varied group of organisations; with the sole purpose of combating anti-social behaviour and keeping the city center safe.Informal: Informal teams will usually tend to have roles within the team that can be more malleable and elastic, thereby allowing members of the group to move in and out of the group with some amounts of flexibility. Team members will usually leave one group and enter another as their particular (i.e.
specialised skills) skills are required at that point. The goals of the group may be more vague and the internal structure may be not as well defined as a formal group, but the informal nature of the group can allow for increased levels of innovation and allows new ideas to be considered more easily. An example of an informal group could be a best practice working group. Temporary: Temporary group are formed for a short and limited time period in order to complete a particular task. Temporary groups are then disband once the objective of the task has been completed. In many cases it is difficult for members of temporary teams to work together efficiently as they are unaware of the strengths and weaknesses of their co-workers. This makes temporary teams less effective as permanent teams, as in permanent teams the members of the group have sufficient time to get to know their co-workers.
Although temporary teams can be inefficient in some tasks, they can be efficient at troubleshooting as they sometimes see things differently from established teams, thereby preventing silo thinking. An example of a type of temporary group within the public services would be: tactical, operational, and strategic command teams that operate at the scene of a major incident (i.e.
a car crash). These groups form together exclusively for the duration of the incident and, only once the situation is resolved, they disband.
