Working in Teams

1
Working in Teams

• MIS375

2
What is a Team?

• small number of people
• complementary skills
• committed to a common purpose and goals for which
  they hold themselves mutually accountable.

3
Team Member Behavior

• Helpful
• Destructive
• BE GOOD FOR PEOPLE

4
Stages of Team Development

• Forming
• members explore boundaries of behavior
• Storming
• argue over direction
• Norming
• accept team member roles
• Performing
• working together as a team

5
Key Roles of Team Members

• Member
• Leader
• keeps the team focused
• Scribe
• records meetings
• Gatekeeper
• ensures everyone stays involved

6
7 Habits of Highly Effective People(by Stephen
R. Covey)

• Be proactive (think ahead and make change)
• Begin with the end in mind (all steps are working
  toward end goal think then act)
• Put first things first (prioritize finish
  critical tasks before moving on to garnish)
• Think win/win (help each other you all gain
  more)
• Seek first to understand, then be understood
  (listen more than talk)
• Synergize (seek out differences and find
  complements)
• Sharpen the saw (take breaks to be more effective
  overall)

7
Effective Meetings

• Follow agenda
• Start and End on time!
• Report progress since last meeting
• Discuss issues
• Decide action items
• what, who, by when
• Set agenda for next meeting

8
Forming Teams

• Reason for team project in MIS375
• Ecommerce is a direct result of hyperlearning in
  IT
• Hyperlearning came about during the EC era
• Is a group learning deeply and broadly and
  quickly all at once
• Is a product of competing in a hypercompetitive
  world
• Problems are bigger than can be solved by
  individuals
• One person can learn more in the same number of
  hours learning about a technology in a team
• I have seen this first hand over the last 9 years
  of university teaching

9
Forming Teams

• Reason for team project in MIS375
• In addition, tech projects in industry do not
  historically happen independently. IT research,
  analysis, and development are almost exclusively
  done collaboratively.

10
Forming Teams

• Criteria
• Objective is to form teams of 4-6 (depending on
  number of students in class)
• Can groups be smaller?
• Yes, you may work on a project alone but
  deliverables will be competing against each other
  without consideration for the number of people in
  the group. This project will be difficult with 5
  people and historically has taken 40
  hrs/week/team total work. If you choose to take
  on that burden with fewer people, that is your
  prerogative but is not recommended

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Ideal Team Characteristics

• Special concerns
• locations (work or live near each other)
• Schedules (have discretionary time in common)
• Complementary skill set
• Project will be completed best with division of
  labor. Ideally you will have diversity of
  strengths in technology skills analytical
  skills research skills documentation and
  writing skills deep thinkers (the group
  genius) grinders (the group workaholic)

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Ideal Team Characteristics

• Special concerns-ways around special concerns of
  distance and schedule
• This is MIS.
• Development teams work in India with teams in USA
  and Ireland all the time.
• Distributed teams are a fact of life.
• I research and write papers with 15 different
  people in several countries and none in driving
  distance. How?
• Take advantage of telephony like they do in the
  field email, net-meetings, phone
• Use version control and distribute the work
  (assign ownership).
• Create standards for the group to follow
• Will have weekly time in class for group work.
  Goal is 30 minutes on average per class. (some
  weeks will not have any time others may have
  1hr). Should need few other meetings for whole
  group.

13
Ideal Team Characteristics Class Exercise

• Fill out a sheet with your name, campus, phone
  number and email address
• Write on this paper your special concerns
  regarding
• locations (work or live near each other)
• If you are available near campus, mark none for
  this
• Schedules (have discretionary time in common)
• If you have a flexible schedule, mark none for
  this
• Again, with class meetings, proper distribution
  of tasks, and telephony, most team members should
  not be physically getting together outside of
  class. Face to face meetings should only include
  required personnel for that subtask!

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Ideal Team Characteristics Class Exercise

• Fill out the sheet with your strengths regarding
• Complementary skill set
• Project will be completed best with division of
  labor. Ideally you will have diversity of
  strengths in technology skills analytical
  skills research skills documentation and
  writing skills deep thinkers (the group
  genius) grinders (the group workaholic)
• What do you have to offer the group?

15
Ideal Team Characteristics Class Exercise

• For this exercise, assume you could put in only 5
  hours a week on your project and earn a C.
• Fill out on the sheet how important it is for you
  to earn a B vs. a C on a project by stating how
  many extra hours a week all semester would you
  put in to move a grade up from a C to a B? If you
  knew you were working on a paper at a C level,
  how many extra hours each week would you be
  willing to put in to get it up to an B?
• Do the same thing for moving it up from a B to an
  A? If you knew you were working on a paper at a
  B level, how many extra hours each week would you
  be willing to put in to get it up to an A?

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Ideal Team Characteristics Class Exercise

• Write down on the list names of up to 5 other
  people you would like to work with.
• Understand that I am likely to mix and match
  people based on complementary skills. So I am
  unlikely to put more than 2 computer science
  majors on one team for example.
• Write down any people you would prefer not to
  work with as well
• In TC- have the sheets faxed to Vancouver
• In Vancouver- hand in your sheets
• Lets see if we can create a good skill set with
  special concerns taken into consideration as much
  as possible

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Class Activity 2 to be done after I announce
the groups next class

• Get together with your group
• Discuss skill set
• Determine name for group
• Discuss good meeting times

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Team Info Assignment- Due week 3

• One-page typed report
• Team number and team name
• Table w/ names, phones, email address, picture
  (digital preferred, but photocopy will do)
• Planned meeting times location
• List of norms
• Give a copy to each team member and one to me
• Use this to evaluate yourself and your teammates
• Begin working on your project