Team-X FAQs
Team-X helps you discover your teammates’ unique work styles, surface hidden tensions and barriers, and focus on practical actions to fast track peak performance.
Unlike time-consuming coaching, one-size-fits-all training, or assessments with little utility, Team-X generates instant, data-driven insights tailored to your team’s unique needs and context, and suggests concrete actions that you can implement right away.
Team-X is a Collaborative Intelligence System powered by each team member’s Biodex data, proprietary AI, and proven performance strategies. It was developed by Ultranauts Inc., based on a decade of operational research into building high performing, cognitively diverse teams.
For the purposes of Team-X, a “team” is a small group of people working together to achieve a set of shared objectives, requiring close collaboration and frequent communication – e.g. an 8 person feature team (not a 200 person engineering group), a 6 person marketing analytics team (not a 50 person marketing department).
Team-X is best suited for teams of 4-12 members, but has been used by larger teams as well.
Team-X is delivered as a guided experience consisting of:
- Quick Start. 30 minute kick off call or self paced onboarding.
- Immediate Insights. Soon after your team completes onboarding, you‘ll receive a Team Biodex (a cheat sheet for your teammates’ workstyles) and a Team-X Playbook (an operating manual with insights and actions tailored to your team’s unique needs).
- Guided Experience. 1 hour session with a Team-X Coach to discuss how best to adapt to each other’s workstyles, remove performance barriers, and take concrete actions to improve collaboration and performance.
- Continuous Improvement. Weekly tips on implementing team actions for 4 weeks following the team discussion, regeneration of the Team Biodex whenever new teammates join, and running the whole exercise as a tune-up for the team every 6 months or as needed.
Cross team insights are delivered as an analytics report
The cost of Team-X is an annual fee of $5,000 per Manager/Team. Enterprise pricing is available for groups of 15 or more teams.
Team-X can have a positive impact on neuroinclusion and disability inclusion where traditional approaches may fall short. Team-X’s approach is to help teams identify and adopt shared practices that remove barriers to full participation for every team member, including neurodivergent team members and team members with a disability.
This is different from traditional approaches which focus on one-off workplace accommodations for specific colleagues and don’t change an organization’s or team’s default practices and norms. Such traditional approaches have a limited impact because:
- Some team members with a disability may not feel safe/comfortable requesting an accommodation
- Accommodations don’t remove the underlying barriers preventing a team member from accessing the resources, information and interactions they need to do their work
Founded in 2013 by two MIT engineers, Ultranauts Inc set out on a mission to demonstrate that neurodiversity could be a competitive advantage for business. To achieve that mission, Ultranauts built a world-class engineering firm powered by cognitively diverse teams, and designed a Universal Workplace where everyone could thrive.
Ultranauts grew rapidly, working with industry leaders like Goldman Sachs, Disney and Pepsi to solve tough technical challenges. Within a decade, the company had teammates in 30 states across the U.S., 75% of whom were neurodivergent. The majority of Ultranauts were Autistic, and many were ADHDers, Dyslexic, Dyspraxic, representing a wide range of communication preferences, learning styles, problem solving approaches, strengths and challenges.
Traditional management practices and tools were wholly inadequate for Ultranauts, so they reimagined the workplace, redesigned work systems and experimented with new ways of working so team members could use their unique strengths and do great work together. Those learnings led to the launch of Team-X.
Data and Privacy FAQs
The Biodex™ is a “user manual” for teammates. The Biodex helps teammates adapt to each other’s work styles and preferences by providing insights on what each person needs to do their best work.
The Biodex draws on 60 input variables directly from each team member’s responses to the Biodex questionnaire (e.g. your feedback preferences) and 25 predicted traits generated for each team member using proven models (e.g. how likely you are to raise issues).
The Biodex was originally developed by Ultranauts Inc. to help teammates with a wide range of workstyles communicate and collaborate effectively.
It usually takes about 10-15 minutes to complete the Biodex questionnaire depending on how you choose to answer the questions.
The Biodex questionnaire uses Cognito Forms, a data collection platform that is compliant with GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation), widely considered to be one of the STRICTEST and most comprehensive data privacy laws in the world.
The platform is also compliant with Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 standards for accessibility.
The Biodex collects three types of information from each user, which are used for different purposes:
- General information related to employment. This information is typically already available to a user’s team and employer.
Examples: time zone, typical work schedule - Individual preferences related to communication, interaction and feedback. This information is used to generate content for a Team Biodex (a quick reference for team members’ workstyles and preferences). Examples: What is the best time to provide you with critical feedback? What is your preferred mode for receiving information?
- Personal information related to work style and past experiences (e.g. have past supervisors treated you with kindness?). Individual responses will not be shared with other team members, managers or employers. This information is used to determine the work environment and work practices that can benefit each team member the most as an individual and in the context of a specific team. This information may be used in aggregate to inform recommendations for the team as a whole on work practices that can improve team cohesion and performance (shared via the Team-X Playbook). Examples: Which areas should your team prioritize to improve the way you work together? How can you improve your meetings so every team member can more fully participate?
Ultranauts policy for protecting personally identifiable information (PII) is available here.
As soon as you complete the Biodex questionnaire and submit your responses, you will receive a Personal Biodex Report via email, which is for your information and will only be shared with you.
During the process, you’ll have the option to create a Shareable Biodex Profile (a mini “user manual” for working with you). If you choose that option, you’ll receive a unique public URL that you can share with your teammates and anyone else you choose.
If you are completing your Biodex as part of Team-X, you and your team will receive a Team Biodex (a cheat sheet for your team members’ workstyles and preferences). As part of the Team-X Experience you and your team will receive a Team-X Playbook (an operating manual with insights and actions tailored to your team’s unique needs).
You own your data, and can update or remove your Biodex responses at any time. (You will not receive a new Personal Biodex Report or Shareable Biodex Profile with every update.)