<span>There is a critical need for highly effective teams, but Marchetti (1997) notes teams, while in considerable demand, fail often. Despite a great deal of practitioner and academic literature that has addressed a variety of factors regarding teams and their inability to achieve intended objectives (Hackman, 1990; Robbins & Finley, 1995), teams are still not sufficiently understood (Sahay & Sarker, 2002). Researchers and practitioners alike have asked why it is so difficult to develop and maintain teams that meet performance expectations. Although team research came to the forefront in the 1950s, only in recent years have researchers begun to study the complexity of teams with respect to team member interactions and the collective team experience. Brannick & Prince (1997) assert that managers typically assess performance and recognize employees based on classic measures such as cost, schedule, and quality, but Tippett & Peters (1995) argue that, while </span><span>traditional measures give management a picture of how well a team is meeting short-term goals, they do not indicate long-term sustained team performance characterized as the overall health of a team. As there is little academic work that references the health of teams, we propose to conduct qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with leaders and members of technical project teams in the aerospace industry. We wonder how team members themselves understand team health and when it is wanting. Bettering our understanding about team health and the nature of the interaction of team members that promote it from the proprietary perspectives of team members ? may contribute to a cure for what the literature has identified as chronic team failure. It is our hope, therefore, that the proposed research will make an original contribution to the general literature on teams and, specifically, the promising literature on team health.Doctorate of Management Programs</span>
