team work and leadership skills
Question No. 1: Critical Events and Their Impact on the Team
Identify 3 to 6 “key events” of the semester. A key event is anything that happened during this semester that had a significant impact (positive or negative) on the performance and/or development of your team.
1) First meeting via webcam
2) Struggling to find time to meet and not getting hold of krishna
3) First team charter meeting
4) First face to face meeting at john’s house for our infomercial
Event #1: Where’s Krishna?
This class is unique in the fact that not only is it an online course, but the fact that most of its students are full time employees. That being said, it can be difficult to make sure everyone is present and participating. During the first week of our course, we had noticed that one of our team members was not participating in any of our team meetings or class assignments. At first everyone assumed that it was early in the semester and that he probably dropped the course. Come the second week though, it became evident that he was in the course. He would try to complete the work, but wasn’t attending the meetings. Our team was becoming frustrated and sent an email to you. You reached out to our 5th team member and helped us reach the conclusion that he wasn’t ignoring us, rather he had time conflicts with when we met and we needed to come together to work out a better arrangement. The following day, we all reached a consensus on a good day and time to meet every week. Krishna turned out to be a very instrumental part of our team and we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish everything we did without him.
Event #2: Divide and conquer
Soon after we worked out a good time to meet, we encountered another problem. We were having unproductive meetings. Ours meetings would go for over an hour and go absolutely nowhere. There was no structure or agenda, and our meeting would be spent mostly trying to get everyone on the same page. Abdul and John stepped up, expressed their frustrations, and gave instructions to the team in regards to showing up prepared. Every member was responsible for reading ahead of time, be on time, and most importantly we would divide the work at the end of meeting and assign deadlines. By dividing up the work, it held every member accountable for a specific task, and if it wasn’t finished they were liable for holding up the rest of the team. Because of this new process we were able to cut down our meeting time and be more productive.
Event 3: The Grand Finale’
Our best overall performance by far was the infomercial. A big part of this was getting everyone on the same page and implementing the aforementioned processes to be more efficient and effective. Our overall growth was on full display whenever we came together to do our infomercial. Everyone not only was prepared, but enthused to knock this out of the park. John happened to formerly work as an audio engineer and had the equipment to produce a high quality sound. Also, he was in a band and showcased a level of creativity that put us over the top. Abdul, Krishna, and Winnie were at first nervous about recording but after we started it became obvious that they had a talent for speaking. The confidence showed in all of their parts of the audio. The last part of the infomercial was the jingle. Thomas took on the task without any hesitation, and came up with an amazing jingle that made everyone in the group excited and enthused to participate in the song. It was amazing to see everything we learned come together and produce something we are all proud of.
Question No.2: Team Development Exercise and Stages of Team Development
Your team completed the Team Development Exercise. In that exercise you agreed your team reflected norms and behaviors associated with the stages of team development.
Describe your team’s continued progression (or lack thereof) through the stages of team development throughout the semester.
What specific team norms and behaviors were dominant at each stage?
What specifically accounts for your team’s progression (or lack thereof) through the stages as the semester unfolded? Be specific.
Please refer to quantitative self- and team-assessment data to support your assertions.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS: Be specific when describing your team’s “stage” of development at any point in the semester, and offer support for your assertions and conclusions. Be sure to reference the results of the Team Development Exercise and all 4 stages of development; discuss specific team behaviors and norms that reflect each particular stage. Don’t just brainstorm or offer ungrounded assertions. I am interested in your observations about YOUR team’s behaviors and norms, not teams in general. If you believe that your team “skipped” or never really experienced one or more of the stages, be sure and explain why that happened, and note whether it had an impact on the team’s functioning. Use quantitative data from team-assessment surveys to support your assertions (in responding to this question, focus on the data collected from Team Functioning Surveys #1 & #2, and, if relevant, the results of individual TKI, FIRO-B, and EI assessments).
There are four stages of team development. They are forming, norming, storming, and performing. During the forming stage, team members are getting acquainted with each other,. Everyone is really excited during the forming stage. Some team members are excited about working in a group, while others are very nervous. In this stage team members are getting to know each other, asking lots of questions in order to get a feel for one another. Part of this stage is to “create a team with clear structure, goals, direction, and roles so that members begin to trust” one another. We believe that we went through this stage. In the beginning of the semester, when we first met we were all very nervous and excited at the same time. During our first virtual meeting through Google Hangout, there were lots of anxious faces and team members were asking lots of questions in order for us to better understand each other. This stage of the stages of team development was highlighted by a special assignment that we had to complete, the Team Charter. Working collectively, our team was able to create our team’s mission and goals, the team’s processes and expectations. In our Team Development Exercise, we scored a 3.9.
The next forming stage is the norming stage. During this stage of the team development, the team is a lot more molded together. Issues are addressed and taken care of. We believe our team went through this stage. Through our WhatsApp group, we were able to communicate more often, on a daily basis most of the time. In this stage, we were also meeting weekly to discuss what we needed to do for the week and divide up tasks so that the work got done in a timely manner. The team was starting to mold together into one. We were able to give some teammates nicknames and also talk about things outside of the tasks assigned, while keeping our focus on the things that need to be done. In the Team Development Exercise, our team scored a 3.8
The next stage of the team development is storming. At a certain point in the semester, some group members were taking their feet of the gas pedal. We were starting to shift our focus in the wrong direction. We would set dates for tasks to be completed, and they would not be completed during that time. Some team members were missing meetings and others were starting to get frustrated with the lack of effort from others. This is when we decided to call for a team meeting to discuss issues that were frustrating, and reiterated the fact that we are a team and that we needed to stick together in order for tasks to get done in a timely manner. This meeting helped us refocus on the tasks at hand. Our team was starting to get along better, and tasks were being completed in a timely manner. In the storming stage, our team scored a 2.7.
The last stage of the team development stage was the performing stage. This stage was really highlighted in our infomercial project. We felt like our team really got close during this stage. We really enjoyed working with each other through the infomercial. This was also the first time we actually got to meet in person to record the infomercial, but it was more than that. We actually felt a bond and shared laughs. Team members were satisfied in the results that came out of our infomercial. This was very evident in our high scores on Team Functioning Survey #2, where were scored a 4.3 out of 5 for team effort, and a score of 4.7 on team trust. In that survey, we also scored a 1.75 on team conflict and tasks. This was also evident in our Team Development Exercise in which our highest score was a 3.9 in the performing stage. Now that we have discussed how our team how our team has progressed through four stages of team development, we will discuss what accounts for our progress.
We believe that what accounted for our progress is everyone’s willingness to want to work together. We also believe that our communication, has improved dramatically over the course of this semester. This has allowed us to be truth with each other, to be frank with each other and most importantly to get the tasks done in a timely and effective manner. We also believe our weekly meetings and our WhatsApp group both deserve lots of credit. We were able to communicate on a regular basis, to keep up with assignments and monitor progress. In conclusion, we can say that our team has gone through the four stages of team development. We were able to work well together, weather the storm when things got frustrating, and now we are able to call each other friends for a lifetime.
Question No. 3: Team Effectiveness and Quantitative Data
NOTE: Complete the spreadsheet in the file: Survey Data Spreadsheet (post the completed spreadsheet to your Team File Exchange).
Analyze and interpret the quantitative data collected this semester (from Team Functioning Surveys #1 and #2). Explore this data and look for two specific examples where the data support/reflect the team’s effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) this semester. Do not just mindlessly report all the data you collected; you should examine the data and report the two most interesting or relevant results in terms of your team’s functioning this semester. Discuss only two specific examples. Be specific. (Note: the Team Development Exercise is not an acceptable source of quantitative data; the only acceptable sources are the team functioning surveys used this semester.)
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS: Data tells a story! This question asks you to more fully explore the quantitative data you collected this semester (using the team functioning surveys). You have probably used some of this data to support assertions made in question # 2. Now I’m asking you to look at ALL of the data, and address whatever interesting or relevant results you may find. In particular, you are looking for data that reflects what happened to the team as it progressed through the semester. Does your data suggest specific factors that may have contributed to effective or ineffective team functioning?
For example, what do the results for the factors measured (team coordination, team effort, conflict, etc) suggest regarding team functioning? Did those results change over the semester? If so, what might explain these changes? If not, why not? Are there other variables that may have impacted the team’s functioning (e.g., the emotional intelligence of team members?)
The data from the team functioning survey clearly reflects the progress from team functioning survey 1 and 2. This time we would like to choose team coordination and team identification in the team as examples. The reason was, these are the two specific things we tried to focus mainly for the team development. In the starting weeks of the semester we had faced the problem with team coordination where one of the team member has missed for two of the team meetings. We had achieved the team coordination by the mid semester by planning the schedule and the tasks to performed by each member. Time is allocated for each specific task and we tried to finish before the fixed deadline. The communication is greatly improved between the members when in compared to the starting week and we make sure that there are no communication gaps between the team members about the allocated work, deadlines and their roles. We make sure that every meeting would be as productive as possible and everyone define their contents beforehand where the hindered situations and back steps are avoided mostly. The correct tools for the clear communication were chosen i.e., WhatsApp and Google hangouts where the information is exchanged between the team members and meeting were conducted. The agenda for the meeting is fixed in a week advance such that everyone will had a crystal-clear idea of what is happening in the present week and next week. The quantitative data collected from the first team functioning survey made us to analyze the situations and made us to correct and improve our drawbacks. This analysis made to come up with good strategies and improved our communication. While analyzing the data for team co-ordination from team functioning survey #1 to team functioning survey #2, there is the score. In the survey #1, we got an average score of 4.28 where it is increased to 4.55 for the survey #2 which shows the growth of 0.3. when comparing each question under the team co-ordination, I felt that change in the score is due to lack of trust on others and the co-operation. Due to the friction in team before the survey #1 and the varying conflict style of team members the score is less. A person with the management style of avoidance and competition would create trouble for the one working with the collaborating and compromising management style. As the negative points were identified and rectified, the average score was improved which even effected the team performance positively.
The next example is the team identification and the scores recorded are 4.4 for the survey #1 and 4.75 for the survey #2. The change in the score was 0.4 which evidently shows that there is a great increase in the score from survey #1 to 2. Initially, the team members were not associated with the other members greatly and there is misunderstanding between the team members. This even showed some adverse effects on the team functioning too. The emotional interaction between the team members were less at the initial phase and it was greatly improved at the end and most of the team members feel that they miss the team. almost everyone in the team expressed that they want to work with the team in the future at the end of the semester and they felt proud to be a part if the diversified professionals team. The recognition of the team members work was greatly improved up to giving the appreciations and encouraging the team members. This was not often seen in the initial days and occurred at the end. The attachment with everyone went at peaks after everyone met in personal. These key factors drove the team to be effectively do the tasks and a win-win situation was occurred finally.
Question No. 4: Learning Opportunities
Based on what you have written so far in this report (that is, your responses to the first 3 questions), summarize what you have learned about “working in teams” this semester. What advice would you pass on to future students in this course regarding the process and progress of their teams?
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS: Don’t brainstorm! Base your discussion on your responses to the first 3 questions of this project. For example, if you note the importance of developing trust among team members, you need to be able to tie that back to your own teams’ issues with trust and how you handled it.