Building an Effective Team

Building an Effective Team

Reference:

B. O’Keefe, TEAMWORKS: Skills for

Collaborative Work, University of

Illinois, http://www.vta.spcomm.uiuc.

edu/ (etc)

Lecture Overview

• Why Work in Teams?– Distributing the Workload– Reinforcing Individual Capabilities– Creating Participation

• Important Questions for New Teams– Members’ Attitudes– Members’ Interaction Styles– Members’ Motivations

Why Work in Teams?

• 1 - Distributing the Workload– Project is too big for one person– Need simple numbers of people

• 2 - Reinforcing Individual Capabilities– Project is too complex for one person– Need a wider range of skills than one

person has• 3 - Creating Involvement

– Project is too important for one person– Need a whole group to be committed to the

result

1 - Distributing the Workload

• Project is too big for one person• Assumes the task is divisible into parallel

subtasks– Divisible Task: building a car– Indivisible Task: carrying a heavy log

• Extreme approach: “Divide and Scatter”– partition the tasks into one subtask per

person– work tasks independently– come back together at the end– does not work for most projects

• Tend to see sublinear speedup due to dependencies

1 - Distributing the Workload

• Types of dependencies between tasks

– Independent (completely parallelizable)• can use divide and scatter

– Redundant (must be copied by all members)• e.g. reading the background material

– Sequential (single exec. in a specified order)• usually based on input/output sequence

– Mutually Exclusive (MUTEX) (single exec. in any order)

• resource constraints prevent parallelism

1 - Distributing the Workload

• Precedence Graphs– Independent– Redundant– Sequential– MUTEX– Hierarchical Dependencies

Team Building Activity: Divisible & Independent Tasks

2 - Reinforcing Individual Capabilities

• Task is too complex for one person’s skill set– Requires diversity in abilities– Different members contribute different

strengths– True multidisciplinary team = team in which

no one person can accomplish the task alone (ABET)

• Relevant skills may be personal as well as

technical– writing skill– speaking skill– analytical vs. practical skills

2 - Reinforcing Individual Capabilities

• Need to Identify and State Goals– team goals– individual goals

• Inventory of Resources– individual strengths & interests– individual weaknesses & disinterests

• Comment on diversity– Your best friend may make a lousy team

member– The two of you are too much alike

Team Building Exercise :Clarifying Project Expectations

3. Creating Participation

• Sometimes group “ownership” is important

• Get group involved in a decision– even though a single person decision may be

easier

• If choice is obvious, then it will probably be the

same

• If not obvious, then contributions will be valuable

• Either way:– Members all understand the thought behind

decision – They are less likely to complain later

Important Questions for New Teams

• What is each members’ attitude toward teaming?– Maybe some dislike teams completely?

• How do members’ Interaction styles differ?– What is their individual focus?– How do they react to a group?

• What motivates each individual?– What does this person really want?– What motivation will he/she respond to?

Attitude Toward Teams

• Read The Statements Below

• Rate Each item as:– 4 = strongly agree– 3 = agree– 2 = undecided or 50/50– 1 = disagree– 0 = strongly disagree

Attitude Toward Teams

– I enjoy working in teams

– I often do work in teams

– Group decision making is important to organizations

– I prefer to work in a group rather than alone

– I am comfortable in leadership roles

– When working in a group I usually participate actively

– I like being evaluated based on the group’s work

– I am good at reading other people

– I have important things to say when I am in a group

Interaction Styles

• Two different ways of interacting– 1. Is the person more:

• task oriented - focused on the job and the results?

• People oriented - focused on relationships?

– 2. Is the person more of a:• Thinker - always thinking of the big picture• Doer - wants to be given a task to

accomplish

• Team needs some of each to complement

each other

What Motivates an Individual?

• Everybody is motivated by different

things– some are self-motivated– some need a kick in the pants

(figuratively)

• It helps to identify what motivates each

individual– no one technique works for everyone– need several different carrots– and several different sticks

Summary

• Things to know about– Team Goals– Individual facets

• Personal goals• Personal strengths and weaknesses• Attitude toward teming in general• Interaction style• Motivation