Faculty Career Development Series

Description

The 2025-2026 Team Science Seminar Series will focus on translating team science frameworks into practice with interdisciplinary teams. In this first of six sessions, we will provide an overview of this year’s seminar series, introduce the “Team Diagnostic Survey” which can be used to gain insights into your team’s current effectiveness. We will spend time focusing on the importance of having a compelling team purpose, including ways to identify and ignite (or reignite) a sense of shared purpose in your team.

Scroll down to register for this event!

Learning Objectives

At the end of this event, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the focus of the 2025-2026 Team Science Seminar Series.
2. Practice using the team diagnostic survey to assess team effectiveness.
3. Expand your approach to identifying and enhancing understanding of your team’s shared purpose.

Pre-Work

Before the event, please watch the short video Six Conditions for Team Effectiveness.

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About the Speakers

Brenda K. Zierler, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing and co-lead of the ITHS Team Science Module. Dr. Zierler conducts interdisciplinary research that advances the fields of interprofessional collaborative practice, team science, implementation science, and quality improvement to improve team and patient outcomes. Dr. Zierler teaches Team Science and Leadership in the PhD program and Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Informatics in the undergraduate nursing program and Final Scholarly Project for the DNP program. Her primary appointment is in the UW School of Nursing but she holds three adjunct appointments – two in the UW School of Medicine (Department of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery & Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education) and one in the UW School of Public Health (Department of Health Systems and Population Health).

Erin Blakeney, PhD, RN, is a co-lead of the ITHS Team Science Module and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics at the UW School of Nursing. Dr. Blakeney’s program of research focuses on how teams work together and how their teamwork influences the production of new knowledge and translation of research into practice along the entire classroom to bench to bedside spectrum. She has nearly 15 years of experience developing, implementing, and evaluating team approaches to interdisciplinary education, healthcare, and research.

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Description

What is a real team? How do you move past being a random group of people into becoming a real team that works together to achieve a common goal? In academia, you may join or be assigned to an existing team and have very little to say about who is on the team. Is the team bonded, stable and does it have shared accountability and interdependence amongst the members?

In this Team Science Seminar Series event, we will discuss one of the key conditions of the Six Conditions Framework (Real Team) and provide tools and approaches, such as role clarification and role overlap to improve team functioning. This session addresses considerations in selecting team members with a diversity of expertise, styles and backgrounds. We will also provide tools that can create an interactive team launch.

This is the second session of the series. Scroll down to register!

Learning Objectives

At the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1. Gain a better understanding of what a “real team” means.
2. Identify three different considerations when assembling a team.
3. Utilize a role clarity tool to improve team functioning.
4. Create a team launch using three common objectives.

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About the Speakers

Brenda K. Zierler, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing and co-lead of the ITHS Team Science Module. Dr. Zierler conducts interdisciplinary research that advances the fields of interprofessional collaborative practice, team science, implementation science, and quality improvement to improve team and patient outcomes. Dr. Zierler teaches Team Science and Leadership in the PhD program and Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Informatics in the undergraduate nursing program. Her primary appointment is in the UW School of Nursing but she holds three adjunct appointments – two in the UW School of Medicine (Department of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery & Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education) and one in the UW School of Public Health (Department of Health Systems and Population Health).

Jennifer Sprecher is Director of Strategy Development and Deployment with the School of Nursing. Ms. Sprecher works with organizations to achieve excellence through Strategy development, Lean Project Management, balanced scorecards, change management, benchmarking, team problem solving, team and leadership coaching.

Ms. Sprecher is a strong team facilitator, called upon to facilitate high-level teams where interaction and reaching objectives are critical. Sample facilitations include strategic planning, building collaborations, designing and developing new services, products and processes, implementing process improvements, implementing research studies and creating new research centers. She has worked extensively in the past few years within the arena of team science and applying team concepts to innovative development and research teams.

Before the UW School of Nursing, Ms. Sprecher focused exclusively on health research in the Institute of Translational Health Sciences, also within the University of WA. Prior to the UW, she spent 7 years as Executive Director of the Washington State Quality Award (WSQA), a Baldrige-based non-profit organization. With a background in Industrial Engineering, Ms. Sprecher has been working with process improvement for over 25 years using continuous process improvement methods including Lean, Lean-Sigma, Plan Do Check Act and 6S (5S workplace organization combined with Safety) and Total Quality Management. Ms. Sprecher has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, a Master’s of Science in Management Systems, is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and an International Coaching Federation ACC certified Leadership Coach.

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Description

How can your team accelerate its effectiveness in working together to achieve your shared goals? In this session, we will examine three key “Enabling Conditions” from the Six Conditions for Team Effectiveness Framework:

1. Sound Structure/Work Design,
2. Supportive Context/Organizational Support, and
3. Team Coaching.

At the end of this session, you will have a clearer idea of how each of these enabling conditions contributes to team development and effectiveness, as well as practical ways to make improvements.

This is the third session of the 2025–2026 Team Science Seminar Series. Scroll down to register!

Learning Objectives

At the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1.  Define the three enabling conditions of team effectiveness from the Six Conditions Framework.
2. Assess your team’s enabling conditions.
3. Identify 2–3 practical strategies to improve your team’s enabling conditions

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About the Speakers

Brenda K. Zierler, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing and co-lead of the ITHS Team Science Module. Dr. Zierler conducts interdisciplinary research that advances the fields of interprofessional collaborative practice, team science, implementation science, and quality improvement to improve team and patient outcomes. Dr. Zierler teaches Team Science and Leadership in the PhD program and Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Informatics in the undergraduate nursing program. Her primary appointment is in the UW School of Nursing but she holds three adjunct appointments – two in the UW School of Medicine (Department of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery & Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education) and one in the UW School of Public Health (Department of Health Systems and Population Health).

Erin Abu-Rish Blakeney, PhD, RN, is a co-lead of the ITHS Team Science Module and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics at the UW School of Nursing. Dr. Blakeney’s program of research focuses on how teams work together and how their teamwork influences the production of new knowledge and translation of research into practice along the entire classroom to bench to bedside spectrum. She has nearly 15 years of experience developing, implementing, and evaluating team approaches to interdisciplinary education, healthcare, and research.

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