4 Facilitate the process of effective team formation and group work

Another key component to support effective teamwork is providing scaffolded exercises that lead students through the steps of effective team formation and ongoing team processes.  This includes:

1. Exercises that help teams get to know one another in the context of a diverse team.
2. Exercises that lead students through the process of developing a team charter or other document to guide their work together.

It is often helpful to allocate class time for completing these activities to provide a supported beginning to the team process.  In online courses, consider creating forums for each team as a mechanism for beginning communication.

Exercises to Support Relationship Development in Teams

Exercise 1:  Getting to Know One Another

In order to form a team, you must first establish who your teammates are. In this exercise you will use a “go-around” process where everyone on the team answers each question.  Start with the first question, and allow everyone a chance to answer.  When everyone has on the team has spoken, move on to the next question.

Practice:

Introduce yourself to those in your group using the “go around process” (everyone has a turn to answer the question, one by one, before moving to the next question).

a.     What is your name?  What do you prefer to be called?

b.     Where are you from?

c.     Tell me about one of your grandmothers.

d.    What is one thing you are passionate about?

Note:  Why use the question “tell me about one of your grandmothers”?  The question “tell me about one of your grandmothers offers group members a chance to share about their cultural background and values in a way that is relatively non-threatening.  It is recommended especially when forming culturally diverse teams (Holmes, 2017).

Exercise 2: Discover Strengths and Competencies

In order to determine team roles and tasks, it is helpful to discover the strengths and skills of your teammates.  Remember – you will want to balance working in your own areas of strength, with challenging yourself to develop additional skills through the project.

Exercises to Establish Team Norms, Goals, and Processes

Exercise 3: Establish Team Norms

As a team, you will want to develop a “culture” that describes the way that your team chooses to work together. Though these norms may be different from the individual preferences of group members, in this stage of team building you will work to agree on a set of rules that will determine how you will interact and work together.  Consider the following questions:

1. Attendance: How many absences from meetings are acceptable? If you are late, how will you notify team members?
2. Socialization: How much time at each meeting will be spent getting to know one another? Will this be at the beginning or end of meetings? How will you transition from your social interactions into your work time?
3. Team roles: How will work be divided among the team? What deadlines will be established for project tasks?
4. Communication: How will team members communicate with one another (e-mail, text)? How quickly is a response expected? How will team members distribute project work and resources to one another?

Exercise 4: Identify Team Goals

What are SMART goals?  

Specific: Your goal will clearly define what you are going to accomplish. You will ask and answer the What and Why of your goal.

Measurable: You will identify criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. This will be the definition of How you will attain your goal.

• How will you know when the result that you want has been achieved?
• How will you verify your achievement/performance of this goal?

Attainable: Is it possible for you to achieve your desired goal? Can you see a path to your accomplishment? You are the Who in this goal setting process. It is your positive attitude that will allow you to draw on your current strengths and develop new ones as you meet your goal.

Relevant: Realistic goals must represent an objective toward which you are willing to work and which are relevant to you. You need to identify Where this goal will take you. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. Just be sure that each of your goals represents substantial progress.

Time Bound: You need to create a sense of personal urgency by setting times for each step along the way. Knowing When you have to accomplish a task keeps to on track and accountable. What needs to be done by when? Be timely!

Discuss your goals for the project.  What do you hope to achieve? Create goals that are:

S.M.A.R.T: Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Exercise 5: Form a Conflict Management Plan

Though few people enjoy conflict, it is wise to plan how you will address conflicts that may arise in your team.  Conflict occurs where there are different ideas and points of view. When there is no difference of opinion you need to beware of groupthink!  Difference opens up the discussion and a chance to increase creativity and so, conflict can be a proactive rather than a destructive process. Conflict management is the process of limiting the negative aspects of conflict while increasing the positive aspects of conflict.

This process must be viewed as fair by everyone:

• It must meet legitimate needs.
• It is intended to reach a point of agreement between the participants.
• It strengthens participant’s abilities for future cooperative work. 

What process will you use when conflict arises?

The following are some suggestions that each group needs to customize.

Identify the issue:  The very first step in managing conflict is to agree on the description of the issue or problem. This requires excellent communication.

Communicate:  Conflicts are often caused by problems in communication. One person may have misunderstood what the other person has said. Or the other person may not have said what they meant to say. Sometimes when we’re angry we don’t hear what the other person is saying. Sometimes when there is a conflict, people do not tell each other, which causes even more conflict.

Listen: Keeping eye contact, leaning closer, nodding your head when you understand a particular point, and ignoring distractions that are going on around you are some of the ways to send the right “body talk” messages.

Summarize:  When a person is finished expressing a thought, summarize the facts and emotions behind what they have said so that they know you have understood what they’ve said and how they are feeling.

Clarify:  Ask questions to clarify or make clearer different parts of the problem to make sure that you fully understand the other person’s perspective.

Speak clearly:  When you speak, try to send a clear message, with a specific purpose, and with respect to the listener. Say how you are affected by the situation.

Avoid sidetrackers:  Don’t interrupt, criticize, laugh at the other person, offer advice, bring up your own experiences, or change the subject.

Brainstorm Once the problem is agreed on, try to come up with as many ideas as possible. During this process, any idea that comes to mind should be expressed and written down. Don’t judge whether the ideas are good or bad, or even discuss the ideas. Just try to come up with as many possible solutions as possible.

Find Win-Win options:  Look for ideas that could help both sides. Stick to interests and desired outcomes. When we focus on interests instead of positions we find solutions.

Find a fair solution:  Then go through the ideas using fair criteria to see which idea might be best. Using fair criteria means to judge each idea with both people’s interests in mind. Try to use reason and not emotion to judge an idea, and with respect to each person’s difference in perception. A fair solution respects the interests of all sides.

Identify a potential conflict that could happen in a course team:

Identify 3 strategies you might use to manage this conflict:

Create a Team Charter

The exercises above may also be integrated into the process of forming a team charter.  A team charter is a document that a group creates together that governs its work together.  The charter may include:

• Team expectations, roles and norms.
• Team member roles and responsibilities, listed out specifically for each team member.
• Procedures for group meetings, decision making, and managing conflict.

References

Doran, G. T. (1981). There’s a SMART way to write management’s goals and objectives. Management review, 70(11), 35-36.

Holmes, S. (2017, June 23). Facilitating more inclusive interaction in multicultural student teams. Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Halifax, Canada.

Locke, E. A. (1968). Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives. Organizational behavior and human performance, 3(2), 157-189.

Attributions:

Content in the Identify Goals section is borrowed from: Kwantlen Polytechnic University Learning Centres (n.d.) Creating Smart Goals. Retrieved from: http://www.kpu.ca/sites/default/files/Learning%20Centres/Time_SetGoals_LA_0.pdf which is used under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.

Content in the Form a Conflict Management Plan is borrowed from: Kwantlen Polytechnic University Learning Centres (n.d.) Conflict Management. Retrieved from: https://kpu.ca/sites/default/files/Learning%20Centres/Comm_ConflictManage_LA.pdf which is used under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.