The Challenges of E-Teamwork
Famous NCAA basketball
coach John Wooden said, “Some of my greatest pleasures have come from finding
ways to overcome obstacles.” Persevering
through an aggressive academic program at a brick-and-mortar institution is
very challenging and it requires great discipline and tenacity to complete the
program. The National Student Clearinghouse Center reported that, “Just over half—or 54.1 percent, to be exact—of first-time
college students starting school in 2006 graduated within six years.” Many give up, move on, or check out. The sleepless nights, endless reading, and
high-pressure tests can be too unbearable for many.
As difficult as it,
taking classes at a university, it is equally if not more challenging to pursue
an online education. It requires a whole
new level of self-discipline. When the
curriculum adds team-based assignments, the stress increases yet again. With that said, the faculty and team at
Embry-Riddle have produced a program that fosters effective teamwork in an
online environment. It is only fitting
that the largest team I’ve been assigned to in an online community is in my
current course: Leading High Performance Teams.
We spent the first two weeks of class producing a team charter—essential
for direction, accountability, and defining responsibilities. Here are a few lessons learned:
What behaviors seemed to help
your team successfully complete its task?
The key to online teams is
flexibility and communication.
Interestingly, we started this course with two teams of 3-4 people. At the end of the first week, a few students
dropped out and the instructor combined two teams into one. When I was notified of the merger, I had
already stepped us as leader of my initial team by creating a document and
sending an introductory email. When the
teams were merged, I noticed they had drafted a charter. It wasn’t long before they welcomed a fellow
student and I from the defunct team into the fold. As stated earlier, by remaining flexible and
consistently communicating, we were able to get everyone on the same page and
begin our new journey together.
What factors inhibited
decision-making or problem solving?
Fortunately, there were no
glaring weaknesses or hurdles early in our team development process. Obviously, there are time constraints and
everyone has other challenges in their life from family to work to
children. With military deployments, home
emergencies, and technological issues, combining efforts and producing quality
work will require great effort from everyone.
When I entered my new team, it seemed Charles had taken the lead by
compiling student submission for the charter.
This proved to be a great help as I was predisposed this weekend and out
of pocket Friday through Saturday.
How much time was spent on
decision-making and problem solving? How was information shared among team
members?
Prior to starting this degree
program, I forecasted the availability of approximately 15 hours per week. On average, it requires closer to 20-25 hours
each week to remain caught up. Since we
are still in the early stages of team development and forecasting our upcoming
assignments, there was not a significant amount of time requirements. We passed information back and forth a few
times and discussed personal responsibilities necessary to produce quality
work. After a few iterations of the
charter being passed back and forth, we all had a chance to provide the
necessary input and finalize the report. Up to this point information has only
been shared over emails and file exchanges. In the future, we hope to share
thoughts and input through a telecom.
How did issues of authority or power affect the team? How did
collaboration and competition influence the outcome? Did team members make
process interventions?
Everyone on the team seems to
be open to share leadership for each assignment. There are no power struggles or authority
issues at this point. The
responsibilities will be distributed week to week to allow each team member an
opportunity to compile inputs from everyone and submit the assignments. The
team collaborated together very well.
Email request for information were requested with great respect and
patience. Competition was nonexistent
and every one was willing to help each other with busy schedules and deadlines.
As stated earlier, the team is still very early in the development stage and
the initial assignment did not pose any initial personality problems or lack of
responses. With that said, the team was
able to initiate some of the process interventions; such as, clarifying and
summarizing. Each member submitted his
or her forecasted responsibilities and Charles—as team lead—summarized
everyone’s input into a collective document.
Based on our first two weeks of contact, I believe it is going to be a
great semester of collaboration and teamwork.
Steve
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