| Organizing
An Organized Team is a Happy Team
Teams often need help in establishing patterns for how they will
operate. Each of the following issues is developed in detail in
other documents. However, to help provide a solid foundation at
the beginning, an instructor may want to mention the following issues.
Time Management Procrastination
can be a problem for anyone, but bad things can
happen when it occurs in a team! First, tendencies of individual
team members to procrastinate can feed on each other (“It
must not be a problem since they are not worried yet.”).
Second, a procrastinator may be perceived as a slacker or freeloader
(they have not done their part yet) and disregarded, discounted,
or ignored. Third, if individuals are performing a sequence of tasks,
delays of only two days in accomplishing each task can delay the
final product by two weeks or more.
Effective Communication Encourage
teams to recognize that communicating well requires speaking and
listening in addition to writing and reading. Speaking and listening,
especially listening, are often largely untaught skills.10 A crucial
requirement for teams is to have team members who listen to one
another and who fully consider the views of their fellow team members.
Paying attention to how you listen and speak to others helps students
understand each other and avoid hurt feelings. Although students
spend a large amount of time listening to lectures, their active
listening skills can be improved considerably. Refer to Effective
Communication for more information.
Effective Meetings and Decision Processes Raise the following issues
with your students at the beginning.
Agendas Encourage them to establish
agendas before the meeting. A simple agenda may answer when, where,
and why? A more complete agenda may address the following questions:
When? Where? How long? What do we intend to accomplish? Who is
bringing what materials that might be needed?
Fix a Time to End Without an agreement
to end meetings at a fixed time, some teams will coerce members
to simply continue (all night, if necessary) until the job is
done. All team members have a right to be able to plan the part
of their life that is unrelated to this class. Stress will build
between the team member who has another commitment and the member
who lives for the team.
Minutes At the end of the meeting
a recorder should have compiled at least a list of decisions,
conclusions, and action items, i.e., as a result of this meeting,
who is going to do what by when. Each team may want to keep a
notebook or alternative record to collect and preserve minutes.
Strategies for recording may differ for beginning and experienced
teams.
More information is available in Effective Meetings
and Decision Processes.
Work Assignment and Work Division
Professionals frequently sketch a plan or an outline for an assigned
task without completing all the details so that others can use the
outline to complete their tasks. Students may require support and
guidance for learning to draft a solution that enables the entire
team to work together effectively.
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