I believe that one of our biggest challenges working as a team on
the learning team charter and other team projects is the geographic distances
between us. We are in different
countries and time zones trying to communicate through mediums such as the
discussion boards, file exchange and emails.
I think what we have working in our favor is a genuine desire to
collaborate. From the formation of our
group everyone has been eager to contribute and it seems this is a common innate
behavior of everyone in my team. It
didn’t take us anytime at all to come up with some basic ground rules on how to
proceed with this project and others to come.
Team interdependence is a concept that we all understand and we also
understand that we are each liable since the end result will be reflected on
all of us. We had one member who got our thread started and each of us quickly
began responding. Everyone has been very
respectful of each person’s limitations and we quickly made decisions after only
a few discussions.
Logistically speaking, we have decided to use the file exchange
and discussion board as our method of communication, this way we don’t have to
log into multiple places to communicate and it also will reduce confusion. In regards to the use of the file exchange
for collaborative documents we have agreed to upload the newest documents and
delete outdated ones as we move forward with our projects to reduce
confusion. In part, I think we have all
worked in a team capacity in the past using ERAU blackboard tools and therefore
the familiarity with this mode has made communications easy. We all communicated our preferred methods of
communication, our expectations of the group as well as what the group can
expect from each of us. There has not been
any role ambiguity or role conflict as described in Brown’s text (2011). It seems we each understand our purpose and
goal for the assignments.
It is too early to identify any power struggles or competitive
type behaviors. Although I am able to
identify the more assertive team members, but I have not received any negative
vibes in this regards. I think it is
natural to expect a combination of assertive and submissive individuals when
working in teams. In relation to
intergroup operating problems, it is too early to detect any issues if any. The closest thing to a conflict that I can see
is a difference in personal motivations and time limitations when it comes to
submitting teamwork. Some members feel
inclined to completing everything a few days early to leave their weekends
open. On the other hand, others need and
prefer the weekends to complete homework.
My observation is that most of us adopted an integrating style of
cooperation as we all felt comfortable disclosing our personal preferences and
seemed to respect each other’s limits (Brown, 2011).
In closing, I think the only conflict that I can see is in
personalities between those who are early starters and those who wrap things up
on the last day. But, I feel that all of
us are equally motivated to doing well, collaborating and giving 100% therefore
I foresee that our group will not have any damaging team operating problems.
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