Coordination in Dynamic Teams: Investigating a Learning–Productivity Trade-Off.

This article examines how brief, targeted interventions called team launches, delivered solely to the core members of dynamic teams—teams with short lifespans and fluid membership—can enhance coordination, individual learning, and productivity. Conducted as a randomized controlled field experiment with 91 pediatric physician teams in a teaching hospital, the study distinguishes between internal coordination (among core team members) and external coordination (between core members and peripheral contributors such as nurses and specialists). Findings indicate that external coordination improves team productivity, measured by timely patient discharges, while internal coordination fosters individual learning among trainees; notably, the highest learning occurs when both internal and external coordination are strong, which also correlates with reduced patient length of hospital stay. The research highlights the practical value of simple, low-cost team launches in managing dynamic teams and suggests that fostering both types of coordination can mitigate traditional trade-offs between learning and productivity in complex, time-pressured environments.