Task 2 - This is task 2 for C 205 Leading Teams. I passed the assignment first time up. PDF

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This is task 1 for C 205 Leading Teams. I passed the assignment first time up. Just follow the rubric and you will too....

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Running head: Task 2

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Task 2 Roy W.W. McCullum Western Governors University

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A: TEAM CHARTER See Word document labeled: Team Charter B1: TEAM MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION See PowerPoint presentation labeled: C205 Task 2 Presentation C1: ROLE FUNCTIONS The members of my team were Nicholas Johnson, Raymond Ramirez, Neil Batchelder and myself. Raymond was the team leader and his role was to hold every team member accountable for their portions of the task. He was also responsible for researching and writing the part of the presentation that identified the problem of communication within teams in a virtual environment. Neil was the presentation compiler and his role was to use his professional experience of producing presentation material to compile all of our research and put it into the presentation. He was also responsible for analyzing the problem and determine causes and effects. Nick was the editor/ reviewer and his role was to ensure the final product’s quality by reviewing the presentation and fixing errors. He was also responsible for identifying five best practices of high performing teams. I was the utility team member and my role was to support research efforts, ensure accuracy and help all other team members as needed. I was also responsible for the proposal of a solution to the communication problem. C1A: TEAM MEMBER STRENGTH The strength of one of my team members that affected the team was Neil’s strength of his professional experience producing presentation material. By utilizing his strength, we were able to obtain a more consistent presentation than we would have if all four of us had tried fusing all

TASK 2 of our parts into one common presentation. It made the presentation more uniform and looked more professional. His abilities also allowed for a faster compiling of all of the information because he has had a significant amount of more time working within the program. C1B: TEAM MEMBER WEAKNESS One weakness that the team had was the ever-changing method of communication required to keep in touch with my team. I am in the Navy and while I was on the ship in the middle of the ocean our internet access was less than reliable. Every other member of the team was able to access their school email and also their cell phones. I was not able to maintain a clear line of communication with my team. This made collaboration difficult between the team and myself. They were also able to access the class material while I was only able to get the material to load on a very rare occasion. C1B1: WEAKNESS MITIGATION One way to mitigate this weakness is to determine alternate methods of communication. We did this eventually by adding my work email to the communication stream. This allowed me to be able to see all of the correspondences that the team had been sending to each other. My team was able to email me the team charter so I could collaborate on it and sign it. The ability to adapt and overcome this weakness allowed for a smooth work flow with my group once we figured out how to work around my lack of internet. C2: TEAM COMMUNICATION The main form of communication for our team was a mixture of email and text messaging. When the class first began, we communicated via our school email addresses. This proved to be difficult because of the lack of internet access for myself and also because we all

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did not get instantaneous alerts when another member emailed the team. Once I was able to get them my work email address, we got better at communicating and everyone checked their messages more often. The text messaging helped tremendously once my ship returned to port and it became the primary method of communication within the group. C2A: INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK The team solicited individual feedback and communicated with the team by sharing documents with Google Drive. This was created to allow for a common work place for all of us to place our research and assignments into. Once someone placed something into Google Drive they would text message the team in our group message to let us know that they placed work into it. That would allow for all of us to go into the Google Drive to proof read, verify accuracy and provide feedback on the work provided. Any feedback that was provided would be done via the group message platform so that all members of the team could see what was provided. C3: BUILDING AND COLLABORATION Our team built collaboration effectively by fostering a goal-oriented work environment. We did this by setting our expectations for the task at hand and establishing our roles within our team by utilizing the strengths that we each had. One example of using our strengths was by using Neil to compile the presentation. He does this professionally and by using his strength it allowed us to have the presentation created quickly. This allowed us more time to proof read and smooth out the final product. We also built collaboration by creating a team that encouraged different and new ideas. Everyone was very encouraging when someone had an idea, even if it clashed with their idea. One of the main ways we created collaboration within our team was by

TASK 2 sharing personal things about our experiences in life. We started to build a personal bond with each other and started to gain the trust of each other over this very short period of time. C4: MANAGING CONFLICTS Throughout this assignment there were not any conflicts between our team. However, it was agreed upon by all team members that any conflict that would arise would be settled by a vote among the team. In order for the conflict to be resolved a majority vote would be use to determine the outcome. If at any point someone was uncomfortable bringing their concern up to the entire group, they were to bring it up to the team leader. If the concern could not be resolved by the group our last option was to bring the concern up to a course instructor. C5: DECISION MAKING PROCESS The decision-making process was a majority vote-based process. When we came up with the topic that our presentation was going to be about one team member said we should do communication problems and then why he chose that topic. We all voted and that became our topic. Next, he said that we should specifically focus on communication problems in the virtual world. We then voted for the specifics and it too passed. Both votes were unanimous and agreed upon by all team members. When it came time to chose which sections, we were all going to work on it was a first come first serve basis. This allowed us to pick the part that we felt strongest about. C6: STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT The four stages of team development, based on Tuckman’s model, are forming, storming, norming and performing. This was seen in our team project in the way that we determine each team member’s role within the team. Our leader was chosen for us but after the leader was

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chosen, we developed the various role for all other participants. This is considered the forming stage and helped us with the “… establishment of dependency relationships with leaders, other group members, or preexisting standards.” (Tuckman, 1965) The second stage of our team development is the storming stage. This stage was seen by myself when I was unable to promptly reply to my team or was unable to produce my portion of the work as fast as everyone else. This stage has to deal with the conflicts or fiction between team member. This played a key role in the norming stage, in which conflicts and resistance are overcome. Once we determined the most efficient way for all of us to be in communication our team cohesiveness became stronger, “… new standards evolve, and new roles adopted.” (Tuckman, 1965) The last stage of group development is the performing stage. In this stage we became an ever-evolving team that bent the roles we had determine in the beginning. We all took it upon ourselves to help one another in researching and developing our portions of the presentation. Everyone took an active approach to ensuring that our task was completed on time, which led to an early finish. C7: POWER BASES AND INFLUENCE The first power base that was evident within our team was the informational power base. Our leader used this base to explain why we broke down the topics the way we did and it helped us to see the bigger picture. The next power base that was seen was the reward and coercive power bases. The leader explained that the tasks should be completed according to the timeline agreed upon for two reasons. His first reasoning was because three out of the four of us are trying to finish our degrees by the end of this term. The reward being that we would have more time to finish the remainder of our classes and because the class is over the Christmas and New Year holidays it would allow for more time with family. Those reasons were rewards. He then coerced us by stating all of the negative outcomes such as having to pay for another term and

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further prolonging our degrees. He even showed us a check that he voided out for the tuition for another term. The thought of having to pay all that money for one or two more classes motivated us to finish as soon as we could. Not just for our own sake but for the entire group’s sake. Expert power was also used by team members when choosing what each member’s role and what portion of the presentation we all picked. Using this power, we were able to pick based on things we were experts in so that the task could be finished with little to no rework. C8: TEAM STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES Two strengths that our team had were our motivation and our abilities to help each other out wherever and whenever it was needed. Our motivation was the key driving factor when it came to how we approached this presentation. There were no instances where we exceeded a deadline set by our group. The work that was provided by each member was thorough and exceeded the group’s expectations. Our driving force for our motivation was ensuring that no one person was the bottle neck that held the others back or caused delays. Our team’s willingness to help on another stemmed from the cohesiveness that we built as a team. We all understood what was at stake for each other and knew that if one person struggled, we all struggled. This led to us being a source of help for each other. Two weaknesses that our team had were the communication difficulties we had in the very beginning and our attention to fine detail while proof reading the presentation. The communication issue was a result of my inability to have a strong internet access. While deployed on the ship, internet gets placed at the low end of the ship’s priorities. This caused me to have very small windows of opportunity to access my school email and to open various websites and references. The next weakness that our team had was evident when proof reading the presentation. There were many inconsistencies and errors throughout the presentation. They

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were found after multiple members of the team had already proof read the presentation. This delayed the final product because after each change the team had to go back in and verify the accuracy. C8A: OVERALL PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT One way that our team could have improved our performance could have been to establish multiple communication avenues at the start of the class so that there were backup methods of communication in place. This would have ensured that all members could have remained in communication with one another without any delay in information. Another way we could have improved our performance could have been for all of us to take our time while proof reading the presentation and we could have all done it at the same time. This could have been accomplished via skype or another method of video conference and would have led to a finished product without any delays. C8A1: JUSTIFICATION OF IMPROVEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS When establishing our team, we should have ensured the entire group disclosed multiple means of communication. We should have provided our school and personal email addresses and also our phone numbers. Providing these three items would have ensured that all members of the team could have been in constant communication from the very beginning. Sometimes there are delays in the delivery of a message across different forms of communication such as limited internet access. If alternate means are established you will ensure that the message is delivered in one form or another and all teammates are on the same page. When the presentation was compiled, we should have had a video conference. This would have allowed all four of us to talk about the corrections that need to be made. This would have

TASK 2 ensured that everyone was thorough and that everyone completed the proof reading without distractions. We would have been able to voice why we wanted certain changes to be made and could have questioned each other on other changes. This would have saved time and ensure accuracy the first time.

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TASK 2 10 REFERENCES Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Retrieved January 04, 2021, from http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Group_Dynamics/ Tuckman_1965_Developmental_sequence_in_small_groups.pdf...