Working as a Team PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 1
Running head: WORKING AS A TEAMWorking as a TeamWorking as a TeamIntroduction: Working effectively as a team can be described as accomplishing something much bigger and more effectively than can be done by an individual. (2005)Assessing effectiveness is very important when dealing with teams and working together to reach a common goal. Believe it or not it can be hard to work in teams with people at times because other issues might get in the way like: egos, productivity, etc. In order for teams to be effective they have to first share a common goal. Harrison states that QWL, quality of life, and well being plays an important part in group wo ...view middle of the document...
If teams evaluate other team mates work to keep them on track and to keep them staying focused on the same common goal then there is no limit to how effective a team mightThe disadvantages far outweighed the advantages in this endeavor. The only advantage that comes to mind would be the fact that it would be hard to act on any biases or prejudices one might have. If someone was prejudice regarding ones race they could not act on this due to the absence of any physical or visual contact with that person. This can be expanded to someone's type of dress, physical appearance, handicaps or even gender to a point. The ability to get involved with a verbal confrontation in this type of environment is also reduced. It is harder to be argumentative when all communication is done over the internet.This team feels the disadvantages with this type of team are more obvious. Right after the team assignments were announced it was important to start dialogue amongst ourselves. This would allow us to introduce ourselves and begin the process of choosing how we were going to complete our first task. Early on only 2 out of the three team members were in communication with each other. It was several days before the third member joined in. This initial process took away valuable time from the team and forced us to complete our first assignment with little time for feedback and interaction. This is just one example of the disadvantages of this type of team. This type of communication problem could arise in several ways, a student could drop out of class or someone's computer could crash.Brainstorming is one of the most critical aspects of working on a team, this process becomes difficult due to the lack of face to face communication. When a question is asked it is not responded to in a timely manner. It might even take a day or two before everyone responds to it.There are several ways to avoid these types of problems in the future. Team assignments can be announced earlier to allow more time to establish communication, being more aggressive in our attempts to establish the initial communication, instead of an e-mail based forum to communicate, a chat room type forum would allow everyone to be involved in more of a real time conversation. Questions wo...