ETM5221 Engineering Teaming: Application and Execution

1
ETM5221 Engineering Teaming Application and
Execution

• Nicholas C. Romano, Jr.
• Nicholas-Romano_at_mstm.okstate.eduPaul E. Rossler
• prossle_at_okstate.edu

2
Week 2 April 9, 2002Structure, Process,
Facilitation
3
Agenda

• NetMeeting Experience Discussion
• Modes of Collaboration
• Team Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
• Process Gains and Losses
• Lessons Learned
• Facilitation

4
NetMeeting Discussion
5
Meetings are difficult
Waiting to speak Domination Fear of
speaking Misunderstanding Inattention Lack of
focus Inadequate criteria Premature
decisions Missing information Distractions Digress
ions
Wrong people Groupthink Poor grasp of
problem Ignored alternatives Lack of
consensus Poor planning Hidden agendas Conflict In
adequate resources Poorly defined goals
Poor Meetings
Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman, Electronic meeting systems Ten years
of lessons learned, in Groupware Technology and
applications, D. Coleman and R. Khanna, Editors.
1995, Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ. p.
149-193.
6
An input-process-output model of teamwork
Group
Task
Process
Outcome
Context
Technology
(Source Doug Vogel)
7
Source of facilitation lies on a continuum

• One or more people
• Embedded
• in software

(Source Doug Vogel)
8
A facilitation model
Cognitive Issues
Assumptions and Frameworks
Rapport/Resourcefulness
Group Issues
Outcomes
Task Issues
Skills Techniques Group Systems
Toolbox
(Source Doug Vogel)
9
Number problem
10
Revised number problem
11
Collaboration is

• Difficult
• Expensive
• Essential

12
Modes of Collaboration
Place
Same
Different
Same
Time
Different
(Source Romano)
13
Systems to support different types of
collaborative modes
Place
Same
Different
Audio/ Video Group Support
Sessions Group Support
Same
Time
Team Rooms Project Rooms
Team Database Virtual Sessions
Different
(Source Romano)
14
A team by its vary nature often differs in terms
of

• Its members technical knowledge, skills, and
  abilities (KSAs)
• And their teamwork KSAs

Team members probably exhibit wider variability
in Teamwork KSAs than they do in Technical KSAs
15
Knowledge, skill, and ability (KSA) requirements
for teamwork

• Interpersonal
• Conflict resolution
• Collaborative problem solving
• Communication
• Self-management
• Goal Setting and performance management
• Planning and task coordination

Source Stevens, J. and M.A. Campion, The
knowledge, skill, and ability requirements for
teamwork Implications for human resource
management. Journal of Management, 1994. 20
(Summer) p. 503 ff.
16
I. Interpersonal KSAsA. Conflict resolution

• Recognize and encourage desirable, but discourage
  undesirable team conflict
• Recognize the type and source of conflict
  confronting the team and to implement an
  appropriate conflict resolution strategy
• Employ integrative (win-win) negotiation strategy
  rather than traditional win-lose strategy

17
I. Interpersonal KSAsB. Collaborative
Problem-Solving

• Identify situations requiring participative group
  problem-solving and to utilize the proper degree
  and type of participation
• Recognize the obstacles to collaborative group
  problem solving and implement appropriate
  corrective actions

18
I. Interpersonal KSAsC. Communication

• Understand communication networks and to utilize
  decentralized networks to enhance communication
  where possible
• Communicate openly and supportively, that is, to
  send messages that are behavior- or
  event-oriented, congruent, validating,
  conjunctive, and owned

19
I. Interpersonal KSAsC. Communication (contd.)

• Listen in a non-evaluative manner and to
  appropriately use active listening techniques
• Maximize consonance between nonverbal and verbal
  messages
• Engage in ritual greetings and small talk, and a
  recognition of their importance

20
I. Self-Management KSAsD. Goal Setting and Perf.
Mgmt.

• Help establish specific, challenging, and
  accepted team goals
• Monitor, evaluate, and provide feedback on both
  overall team performance and individual team
  member performance

21
I. Self-Management KSAsE. Planning Task
Coordination

• Coordinate and synchronize activities,
  information, and task interdependencies between
  team members
• Help establish task and role expectations of
  individual team members, and to ensure proper
  balancing of workload in the team

22
Difficulties with groups

• Some tasks are simply not well suited for group
  methods or processes
• Often develop preferred ways of looking at
  problems that can inhibit innovation
• Synergistic effect can be absent
• For example, brainstorming doesnt exceed
  performance of individually produced and combined
  results

23
Difficulties (continued)

• Politics, power, and position can dominate
  methods or results
• Or can suppress contributions of others
• A group fulfills social needs, but group seldom
  has ways of regulating amount
• Fairly reliable characteristic of groups to get
  off track and get stuck there

24
Difficulties (continued)

• Groups tend to have relatively low aspiration
  levels with respect to quality of solutions
  accepted
• Once some level of acceptance is inferred, little
  further search happens
• Often lack concern and method for dealing with
  way to best utilize and communicate members
  knowledge

25
Difficulties (continued)

• Strongly influenced by cultural norms
• In natural groups, members tend to be
  conservative, circumspect
• If the groups efforts do not appear reinforced,
  effort is reduced
• As group size increases, effort contributed by
  each individual member tends to decrease

26
Difficulties (continued)

• Reliably exhibit norms against devoting time to
  planning their methods
• Move immediately to attacking problem, relying on
  implicitly shared methods
• Considerable likelihood that method is poorly
  adapted to task and only modestly effective
• Seldom have ability to change the method when
  things not going well

27
A groups Stage 2 problem
Process Gains
Teamworks Stage 2 Problem
Team Meets
Teamwork
Process Losses
28
Process gains

• More information
• Synergy
• More objective evaluation
• Stimulation (encouragement)
• Learning

Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman, Electronic meeting systems Ten years
of lessons learned, in Groupware Technology and
applications, D. Coleman and R. Khanna, Editors.
1995, Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ. p.
149-193.
29
Sources of slippageprocess losses

• Air time fragmentation
• Attenuation blocking
• Concentration blocking
• Attention blocking
• Failure to remember
• Conformance pressure
• Evaluation apprehension
• Free riding

• Cognitive inertia
• Socializing
• Domination
• Information overload
• Coordination problems
• Incomplete use of information
• Incomplete task analysis

Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman
30
Common process losses
31
Process losses (contd.)
32
Process losses (contd.)
33
Process losses (contd.)
34
Process losses (contd.)
35
Key lessons for outstanding participation

• Anonymity increases the amount of key comments
  contributed
• Parallel nature of interaction increases
  participation
• Adding participants almost always improves the
  outcomes
• Good ideas are a function of the quantity of
  ideas generated

(Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman)
36
Key lessons for outstanding participation
(contd.)

• When participants anonymously criticize ideas,
  performance improves
• It keeps the group searching for better answers
• Any idea may inspire a completely new idea which
  would not have otherwise occurred
• Develop activities that encourage frequent
  generation of new ideas

37
Key lessons for outstanding participation
(contd.)

• Provide feedback to groups to let them know how
  each activity they take maps to the entire agenda
• Groups stay better focused if they understand how
  what they are doing ties into the big picture
• In face-to-face groups, peer pressure keeps
  people moving.
• Distributed groups tend to lose momentum

38
Lessons about (electronic) voting

• Voting clarifies communication, focuses
  discussion, reveals patterns of consensus, and
  stimulates thinking
• Anonymous polling can surface issues that remain
  buried during direct conversation
• Voting can demonstrate areas of agreement,
  allowing the group to close off discussion in
  those areas and focus only on areas of
  disagreement

(Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman)
39
Lessons about (electronic) voting (contd.)

• Electronic polling can facilitate decisions that
  are too painful to face using traditional methods
• Care must be taken to ensure that voting criteria
  are clearly established and defined

40
Key lessons about leadership in virtual teaming

• Technology does not replace leadership
• Technology can support any leadership style
• Some people resist electronic meeting systems
• The game has changed, oral/verbal skills and
  ramming an agenda through are not as important

41
Key lessons about leadership (contd.)

• Loss of engagement for distributed teams
• Lack of visual and nonverbal cues and low
  accountability appears to reduce involvement
• Change of emotional engagement for face-to-face
  teams
• More exciting for some, mundane for others

42
Key lessons about leadership (contd.)

• Need to develop group incentives
• Willingness to accept criticism of you and
  organization
• Make sure there is an individual incentive to
  contribute to the group effort

43
Key lessons from facilitators and session leaders

• Preplanning is critical
• Find a fast, clean way to do idea organization
  people hate it, and you lose them if you take to
  long
• The group must always see where they are headed
  and how each activity advances them toward the
  goal

(Source Nunamaker, J.F., R.O. Briggs, and D.D.
Mittleman)
44
Key lessons from facilitators and session leaders

• Be cognizant of nonverbal interactions Even
  small nonverbal cues can tell a facilitator a lot
• Expect that ideas generated will change the plan
  and the agenda
• Group dynamics can be affected by the selection
  of switches (interfaces)

45
Facilitator behaviors

• Recognizing stages of group process
• Providing motivation
• Establishing a model of behavior
• Managing group creativity, anxiety, and conflict

Source Hayne, S.C., The facilitators perspective
on meetings and implications for group support
systems design. The DATA BASE for Advances in
Information Systems, 1999. 30(3, 4) p. 72-90
46
Facilitator behaviors (contd)

• Maintaining awareness of own feelings as an
  indicator
• Demonstrating flexibility

47
Facilitator interventions

• Planning the meeting
• Observing communication patterns
• Determining levels of consensus
• Creating situations conducive to learning
• Synthesizing information and building cognitive
  maps

(Source Hayne)
48
Facilitator interventions (contd.)

• Recognizing implicit vs. explicit decisions
• Detecting variance from structures
• Confronting the group regarding its process
• Providing structure to focus group limits and
  boundaries
• Intervening when appropriate at level of group
  instead of individual
• Providing closure

49
Facilitator roles

• Ensuring members identify and maintain discussion
  focus and a procedure for that focus
• Ensuring everyone has an opportunity to
  contribute to the discussion and decisions
  regarding focus, procedures and decision issues
• Understanding group values and providing new
  values in the process
• Sensitivity to time management

(Source Hayne)
50
Optimal (face-to-face)meeting sizes
Source 3M Meeting Management Team and J. Drew,
Mastering meetings Discovering the hidden
potential of effective business meetings. 1994,
New York McGraw-Hill.
51
Guidelines for who to invite to meetings

• Relevant experience
• Must be in on decision
• Are crucial to implementation
• Most affected by the problem addressed
• Responsible to resolve or implement decision

• Direct responsibility and authority over topic of
  discussion
• Enough knowledge to contribute meaningfully
• Information unavailable elsewhere

Summarized in Romano, N.C. and J.F. Nunamaker.
Meeting analysis Findings from research and
practice. In Proceedings of 34th Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences.
2001 IEEE.
52
Developing an agenda
Handle before meeting
Prioritize topics and specify success for each
List potential topics
Define goal for each
Handle after meeting
Handle during meeting
Based on Kaner, S., Facilitator's Guide to
Participatory Decision-Making. 1996, Gabriola
Island, British Columbia New Society Publishers.