Student projects as dispersed projects

1
Student projects as dispersed projects

• Bob Hughes
• Faculty of management and information sciences
• University of Brighton

2
Some over-arching issues

• Emphasis on theory or practice?
• Taught versus learnt material
• Groupwork in HE versus industrial teamwork
• Transferable/common skills versus modularity

3
Groupwork as a good thing

• BCS requirement for accredited courses
• Employers say they value groupwork - team
  players are desirable employees
• BUT
• is academic groupwork the same as typical
  industrial teamwork
• compensatory/disjunctive versus conjunctive tasks?

4
Current project management teaching at Brighton

• Level 1 - group project database application
• Level 2
• mandatory conduct of IT projects practical
  emphasis
• integrative group project
• Level 3 optional project management
• theory/issues emphasis

5
Level 2 conduct of IT projectsassessment

• Ethical analysis 10
• Group project
• plan 10
• products 10
• control documentation 5
• individual log 10
• individual report 15
• Unseen exam 40

6
Group project principles

• Plans have to be handed in before execution -
  some immediate feedback can be given in tutorial
• one day of effort per team member for
  execution
• plan is executed - activity is real
• individual reflective reports

7
Frequent defects

• distinguishing planning and doing
• plans do not take account of other activities
  that students have to undertake
• team members get lost - parasitism
• products not clearly defined - especially quality
  criteria
• schedule drift
• inconsistencies in the final product

8
De facto dispersed projects?

• student presence on campus is reduced by
• part-timers
• part-time work
• mature students - family commitments
• commuting
• lack of appropriate facilities e.g. computer
  access, meeting rooms etc.

9
Dispersed projects convergence of HE and
industrial experience

• large number of case studies on dispersed/
  virtual projects
• groupware/CSCW research
• OB literature on group working

10
Some good sources

• D.Sole and A.Edmundson Bridging knowledge
  gapslearning in geographically dispersed
  cross-functional development teams
  www.people.hbs.edu/dsole/knowledgeGaps.pdf
• J.Weiss and H.Thamhain Strategies for
  effectively managing geographically dispersed
  projectswww.iamot.org/paper/103c.pdf
• E.Rocco Cooperative efforts in electronic
  contexts the relevance of prior face-to-face
  interactionshsb.baylor.edu/ramsower/ais.ac.96/pa
  pers/rocco.htm

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barriers to successful dispersed projects - based
on WT

• poor protocols/procedures
• role conflicts and power struggles
• lack of trust caused by members shirking
  responsibility
• inappropriate use of communication channels
• lack of face to face meetings

12
more barriers

• perceived and actual information hoarding
• lack of support from organizations
• problems with technology infrastructure
• underestimating time demands of collaborative
  tasks

13
Freedom-constraint cycles
freedom
orientation
renewal
trust-building
same time same place
same time same place
implementation
goal clarification
different times
same time
commitment
constraint
based on Johansen et al Leading business teams
Addison-Wesley 1991
14
some practical suggestions

• use some tutorials for team-building group work
• encourage initial face-to-face meetings schedule
  rooms
• use product flow diagrams
• method design
• change-over points
• quality checks

15
more suggestions

• contracts - commitments by participants
• get students to draw up communication plans
• meetings
• procedures, decision recording, follow-up
• roles
• librarian, coordinator, meeting chair, scribe etc.

16
Final suggestion

• individual reports can offer interesting insights
  into how groups actually operate
• can be used as a valuable research tool