The Belbin Team Inventory is a tool used by many organisations to evaluate and optimise their teams. This is an assessment used to gain insight into an individual’s behaviour in a team environment. The system was developed by Dr. Meredith Belbin after studying many teams at Henley Management College.

Over the years and with many studies taken around the world, Dr. Belbin and his colleagues recognised the presence of certain individuals who made a crucial difference to a team and examined the types or roles they belonged to. Out of this research they compiled the nine Belbin types explained below.

Before exploring the types further, it is important to understand that these roles are not personality types such as MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator). An individual can have multiple roles to different degrees. The assessment system will evaluate each individual using a score for each team role. An individual often does exhibit strong tendencies towards multiple Roles.

The roles are as follows: