Making Your Team Effective

The team project is the major portion of your grade and is a great deal of work done under time pressure. You will need to be supremely organized to pull this one off. Below is some advice to help.

Some Team Dynamics Advice

Team work can make things easier or harder (or both). To make sure your team functions well, be sure to:

At your first meeting, establish:

• ground rules about attendance at meetings and legitimate reasons for non-attendance.
• ground rules about how decisions will be made by the team.
• ground rules about how complaints about team work will be addressed and handled.
• a standard for maintaining time logs for the project.
• a contact person for your team. Let Prof. Huff know via email who this is.
• a bi-weekly meeting time when you can all meet. Use this meeting twice a week every week (there will be assignments due).
• Finally, share with each other your honest assessments of your strengths and weaknesses in getting the project done so you can divide the work load up in the best manner.

For each assignment that is due, make

• clear written assignments about duties. These should be specific about the quantity and quality of work to be done and should be specifically assigned to a team member by name.
• a clear set of deadlines for each sub-task that needs to be done (working backwards from the due date). See the Gannt chart examples in the text.
• appointments with specific times and lengths so people can meet to do the work for each deadline

Project Logs

I will expect detailed project logs for your work.A copy (please not your original) that covers the assignment period is to be turned in to me for each assignment that is due. These project logs should include documentation of all the bulleted items above. In addition it should include attendance at meetings and a time log for all the work each team member does. Make a proposal to me about the format or technology you want to use to keep your project logs.

Dealing with Team Problems

Do not seek to blame individuals if you are having problems with agreement or contribution in a team. Instead, spend your time asking how the probem can be solved.

Here are a few links with advice about working in teams:

• A short tutorial with exercises for team members. This has good suggestions for team ground rules.
• Some good suggestions about managing anger and hostility in a team.
• Some more suggestions on negotiating ground rules.

I expect these procedures will not need to be used by any team, but they are available just in case there are insurmountable problems.

Teams can fire an individual

Up until the data collection period ends, a team can choose to fire a member. The team must have documentation in terms of dated notes of specific behavior that is objectionable. The entire team must then meet with Prof. Huff to obtain permission. The member to be fired must be invited to this meeting, and the meeting must be set at a time that the member to be fired agrees they can make. This is one of the few times that Prof. Huff will agree to a meeting during chapel.

Upon firing, the team member must complete a project of their own or make other arrangement with Prof. Huff for credit associated with the STA project. The person being fired will not have their grade affected by the action. Their grade will be based on the quality of work in whatever replacement arrangement is made for the STA project.

A team member can transfer to another team

Up until the data collection period begins, a team member may quit one team and join another. They do not need the permission of the members of the team they are leaving, but the team they are joining must vote to include them. This must be done with the approval of Prof. Huff. Approval will depend on the specific circumstances and reasons for the transfer, and on the effect the transfer will have on the ability of the students in each team to do the project.

Rating Performance in the Team

For each report, team members will fill out a rating sheet about the performance of each member. The interim rating sheet must be filled out jointly by the team for products 1 - 6, be turned in at the presentation as a part of the project log, and all team members must sign it. The final rating sheet is done individually and confidentially, turned in with the final, and will be computed in each person's project grade.

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