Analysis Of Ground Rules

Analysis of Ground Rules

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Analysis of Ground Rules

Working in teams is one of the best experiences during the course of studies at college. It is a great way to learn teamwork skills and comprehend what is expected of one as a team member that is vital for the success of students (Sancho-Thomas, Fuentes-Fernández, & Fernández-Manjón, 2009). One of the team experience that I consider the most effective one is of a project team that was formed for the sake of the final course project. The team involved five members, one of the member was made leader as per the instructions of the teacher and the goal was to conduct an analysis of the organizational processes of an organization. It also involved interviewing one of the managers of the organization. Each one of the team members was assigned certain tasks and responsibilities and every member was expected to fulfill the role assigned to him or her as a team member. The responsibilities were assigned by the team leader with an explicit declaration of expectations from each member and they comprised of following.

Every member was expected to take part in project discussions, to take part in group meetings and take care of the deadline as part of the completion of their individual responsibilities. In addition, each member was expected to follow the directions of a leader and give constructive suggestions when needed to complete the project with quality and efficacy. Some of the implicit expectations from everyone was to participate equally and strive for the success of the project, giving the practical example of “the whole is more than the sum of its part”. I believe the vibrant elucidation of the ground rules made every member sentient of their roles and responsibilities. (Whatley, 2009). I witnessed everyone taking care of their responsibilities, except for one of the members who were not interested to excel in the project. All of the other members took part in the team activities and the project was a success at its culmination.

One of the team experiences that I consider as less effective goes back to the time when I participated in one of the interdepartmental matches being held as part of the sports week. Our team comprised of 11 team members and the team participants were all interested in the sport and participated voluntarily. The members of the team belonged to the different sections and classes but from one department. One of the best players was made leader by one of the teachers leading his teams. The leader was highly motivated to ensure that the team wins its goals and objectives, while the performance of the team was not exceptional from the beginning of the match. After one and two rounds of the match, the situation got worse and the opposite team turned out to be stronger.

The team suffered from team dysfunction, the team members did not trust others abilities and anticipated that a few players will contribute to the team failure just after one round of the game. Trust plays a vital role in determining the effectiveness of team performance (Mach, Dolan, & Tzafrir, 2010). Team members started to blame each other for the poor performance and not everyone held themselves accountable for the team success. The ego of the players who considered themselves the stars of the game was higher and got in the way of team goals. The lack of trust resulted in the avoidance of open discussions about the team deficiencies and this fear of conflict lacked open communication between the members (Lencioni, 2013). Overall attention to the team objectives and the different of classes and sections resulted in poor teamwork of members of the team.

The outcome of the team was as expected, we lost the match and I believe the absence of stated and unstated team ground rules of support, help, motivation, trust and focus on team goals rather than individual goals resulted in team dysfunction.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Lencioni, P. (2013). Conquer team dysfunction. The Table Group.

Mach, M., Dolan, S., & Tzafrir, S. (2010). The differential effect of team members’ trust on team performance: The mediation role of team cohesion. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(3), 771–794.

Sancho-Thomas, P., Fuentes-Fernández, R., & Fernández-Manjón, B. (2009). Learning teamwork skills in university programming courses. Computers & Education, 53(2), 517–531.

Whatley, J. (2009). Ground rules in team projects: Findings from a prototype system to support students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 8(1), 161–176.