Team Communications

1
Team Communications

• CS2335
• Fall 2003

2
Agenda

• Lab
• Review
• Where are we?
• Lecture

What we have here is a Failure to communicate
3
What makes teamwork hard?
COMMUNICATIONS
4
Communication goes bad

• President to VP
• Next Thursday, Halleys Comet will appear over
  this area. This is an event that occurs only
  once every 75 years. Call the division heads and
  have them assemble their professors and students
  on the athletic field and explain this phenomena
  to them. If it rains, cancel the observation and
  have the classes meet in the gym to see a film
  about the comet.

5
Communication goes bad
VP to Deans By order of the President, next
Thursday Halleys comet will appear over the
athletic field. If it rains, cancel classes and
report to the gym with your professors and
students where you will be shown a film, a
phenomena which occurs only once every 75 years.
6
Communication goes bad

• Deans to ProfessorsBy order of the Phenomenal
  President, next Thursday Halleys Comet will
  appear in the gym. In case of rain over the
  athletic field, the President will give another
  order, something which occurs once every 75 years.

7
Communications goes bad

• Professors to Students
• Next Thursday, the President will appear in the
  gym with Halleys Comet, something which occurs
  every 75 years. If it rains, the President will
  cancel the comet and order us all to our
  phenomenal athletic field.

8
Communications goes bad

• Student writing to parents
• When it rains next Thursday over the school
  athletic field, the phenomenal 75 year-old
  President will cancel all classes and appear
  before the whole school in the gym accompanied by
  Bill Halley and the Comets.

9
Modes of Communication
Symbolic
Verbal
Non-verbal
10
Overcoming Communication Barriers
Active Listening
Critique Ideas, Not People
Be Brief
Include Everyone
Paraphrase
Understand Behavior (MBTI)
He who controls the chalk
11
Active Listening
If one more thing goes Wrong today, Im leaving
Sounds like youve had a Rough day!
Yeah, Bob and the TAs give horrible Assignments.
And youre frustrated By that?
12
Feedback Guidelines
Deal in specifics Focus on actions, not
attitudes Determine the appropriate time and
place Refrain from including other
issues
Use I messages instead of you messages. Reinforce
positive, mention negatives
13
Communication Systems
Meet me At five
Ive got hives
14
Team Exercise Farmer
15
Post-Mortem
16
Old Exam Question

• In the Farmer exercise we did in class, we looked
  at the difficulty of communicating complex
  information when you cannot use all available
  modes of communication. Briefly discuss why
  communication in teams is difficult, then give
  the approach you will use to overcome these
  difficulties in your team projects. Note the
  impact of the three modes (symbolic, verbal,
  non-verbal) on your choice of communication
  approaches.

17
Next Time Project Planning
And then the first test