Assuming you are fortunate enough (thank your lucky stars!) to have a group of self motivated, highly competent, and all-round team players as your team members, but lately you've noticed a sudden drop in their performance.  What's the problem?

Upon close examination, the problem can be found in one or more of these four areas:

• Leadership

• People

• Scope

• Schedule

Leadership - Insufficient or inopportune support, sponsorship and direction

1. Ambiguous (or confused) goals and objectives

2. Too many goals - setting unrealistic expectations 

3. Too many unproductive distractions like meetings 

4. Too hands on - Micromanagement

5. Too hands off - Macromanagement

6. No or too little feedback

People - Deficits in unity and teamwork

(Individual)

    7. Lack of required skills

    8. Not enough challenge

    9. No enough incentive

   10.Personal troubles

   11.  Work burnout

   12.  Feeling unappreciated 

   13. Lack of appropriate tools, equipment, supplies, etc. 

(The Team)

   14. Not enough capable bodies 

   15. Clash of personalities

   16. Uneven workload or job assignments

Scope - Does everybody understand what we are trying to achieve?

   17. Vague or obscure requirements 

   18. Bad planning or no planning 

Schedule or Time - Lack of any sense of urgency - Deadline? What is that?

   19. No specific deadlines given - A very common scene in R&D 

   20. Deadlines are not enforced

Lastly, here is a real world interpretation of the famous project management triple constraints (Scope, Time and Cost):

"Productivity never is an accident. It's always the result of a dedication to focused effort, intelligent planning, and excellence." ~ Paul Meyer

Related posts: What is the BEST team structure?, 12 tips on building a high performance team