ETM5221 Engineering Teaming: Application and Execution

1. ETM5221 Engineering Teaming: Application and Execution Nicholas C. Romano, Jr.Nicholas-Romano@mstm.okstate.eduPaul E. Rosslerprossle@okstate.edu

2. Week 4 April 23, 2002Group Dynamics

3. Agenda • A quick review of difficulties with groups • Helping direct group dynamics • Jelled teams and productive workplaces • The mythical man-month • Key features of the Group System Concept

4. Meeting purposes: Almost 2/3 involve complex group processes (Monge, P. R., McSween, C., & Wyer, J. 1989)

5. Look who’s talking • Traditional Teamwork • Boss talked 33% of time • Next person 22% • Technology Supported Teamwork • Boss talked 5 % • Next person 8% (From Romano)

6. A quick review of difficulties with groups • Some tasks are simply not well suited for group methods or processes • Often develop preferred ways of looking at problems that can inhibit innovation • Synergistic effect can be absent • For example, brainstorming doesn’t exceed performance of individually produced and combined results

7. Difficulties (continued) • Politics, power, and position can dominate methods or results • Or can suppress contributions of others • A group fulfills social needs, but group seldom has ways of regulating amount • Fairly reliable characteristic of groups to get off track and get stuck there

8. Difficulties (continued) • Groups tend to have relatively low aspiration levels with respect to quality of solutions accepted • Once some level of acceptance is inferred, little further search happens • Often lack concern and method for dealing with way to best utilize and communicate members’ knowledge

9. Difficulties (continued) • Strongly influenced by cultural norms • In natural groups, members tend to be conservative, circumspect • If the group’s efforts do not appear reinforced, effort is reduced • As group size increases, effort contributed by each individual member tends to decrease

10. Difficulties (continued) • Reliably exhibit norms against devoting time to planning their methods • Move immediately to attacking problem, relying on implicitly shared methods • Considerable likelihood that method is poorly adapted to task and only modestly effective • Seldom have ability to change the method when things not going well

11. Effective use of roles and process help direct dynamics • Group process management roles • Group process member roles • Task • Maintenance • Non-productive • Group process communication patterns • Team member roles

12. An input-process-output model of teamwork Group Task Process Outcome Context Technology (Source: Doug Vogel)

13. Artificial IntelligenceSensemaking

14. Hi Idea Generation Idea Organization Prioritizing Policy Development Satisfaction Lo 1 1 1/2 1/2 1 - 2 Time Satisfaction as a Function of Task

15. AI Categorizer • Analyzes semantic content • Finds and clusters like ideas • Performs as well or better • as an expert human

16. Group process management roles • Leader • Plans agenda (including what’s offline) • Decides process • Ensures closure and continuity

17. Group process management roles (cont’d.) • Facilitator • Uses group processes to help group • Engage in divergent thinking • Survive stress relief, catharsis stage • Formulate creative proposals • Bring agreements to closure • Ensures procedural fairness

18. Group processmanagement roles (cont’d.) • Recorder • Assists facilitator • Captures action items and decisions • Process observer • Makes note of roles played by group members • Notes communication patterns • Comments on process quality when appropriate

19. Task Roles Initiating Activity • Proposing solutions • Suggesting new ideas, problem definitions, approaches, or organization of material

20. Task Roles (cont’d.) Seeking Information • Asking for clarification of suggestions, requesting additional information, or facts

21. Task Roles (cont’d.) Seeking Opinion • Looking for an expression of feeling about something from members • Seeking clarification of values, suggestions, or ideas

22. Task Roles (cont’d.) Giving Information • Offering facts or generalizations • Relating one's own pertinent experience to the group problem to illustrate points

23. Task Roles (cont’d.) Giving Opinion • Stating an opinion or belief concerning the value of a suggestion or one of several suggestions

24. Task Roles (cont’d.) Elaborating • Clarifying, giving examples or developing meanings • Trying to envision how a proposal might work if adopted

25. Task Roles (cont’d.) Coordinating • Showing relationships among various ideas or suggestions • Attempting to draw together activities, ideas, or suggestions of various subgroups or members.

26. Task Roles (cont’d.) Summarizing • Restating suggestions after the group has discussed them

27. Maintenance Roles Encouraging • Being friendly, warm, responsive to others • Praising others and their ideas • Agreeing with and accepting contributions of others

28. Maintenance Roles (cont’d.) Gatekeeping • Trying to make it possible for another member to make a contribution to the group

29. Maintenance Roles (cont’d.) Standard Setting • Expressing standards for the group to use in choosing its content, procedures, decision making • Reminding the group to avoid decisions which conflict with group standards

30. Maintenance Roles (cont’d.) Following • Going along with decisions of the group • Thoughtfully accepting ideas of others • Serving as audience during group discussion

31. Maintenance Roles (cont’d.) Expressing Group Feeling • Summarizing what group feeling is sensed to be • Describing reactions of the group to ideas or solutions

32. Combination Task and Maintenance Roles Evaluating • Submitting group decisions or accomplishments to comparison with group standards • Measuring accomplishments against goals

33. Combination Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d.) Diagnosing • Determining sources of difficulties, appropriate steps to take next • Analyzing the main block to progress

34. Combination Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d) Mediating • Harmonizing • Conciliating differences in points of view • Suggesting compromise solutions

35. Combination Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d) Relieving Tension • Draining of negative feelings by jesting • Putting a tense situation in wider context

36. Combination Task and Maintenance Roles (cont’d) Testing for Consensus • Tentatively asking for group opinions in order to find out whether the group is nearing consensus on a decision • Sending up trial balloons to test group opinions • Purpose is not necessarily for decision making but rather to suggest where effort needs to be focused

37. Managing agreeement • Endorsement – “I like it” • Endorsement with minor point of contention • Agreement with reservations – “I can live with it” • Abstain Kaner, S., Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. 1996, Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers.

38. Managing agreement (cont’d.) • Stand aside – “I don’t like this, but I don’t want to hold up the group” • Formal disagreement but willing to go with majority • Formal disagreement with requirement to be absolved of any responsibility for implementation Kaner, S., Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. 1996, Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers.

39. Ways to poorly manage agreement • Agree on top 20 priorities • Delegate a job to someone who is already overworked • Establish a policy that has no accountability built into it

40. Ways to poorly manage agreement • Create a committee to do the same work over again • Make an agreement that will be vetoed by someone who is not present • Agree to “try harder” from now on

41. We don’t vote here, we arrive • at a natural consensus

42. Nonproductive Roles Being Aggressive • Criticizing or blaming others • Showing hostility against the group or some individual • Deflating the ego or status of others

43. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Self-Confessing • Using the group as a sounding board • Expressing personal, non group-oriented feelings or points of view

44. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Competing • Vying with others to produce the best idea, talk the most, play the most roles, gain favor with the leader

45. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Blocking • Going off on a tangent • Citing personal experiences unrelated to the problem • Arguing too much on a point • Rejecting ideas without consideration

46. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Seeking Sympathy • Trying to induce other group members to be sympathetic to one's problems or misfortunes • Deploring one's own situation • Disparaging one's own ideas to gain support

47. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Special Pleading • Introducing or supporting suggestions related to one's own pet concerns or philosophies, lobbying

48. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Horsing Around Seeking Recognition • Attempting to call attention to one's self by loud or excessive talking, extreme ideas, unusual behavior

49. Nonproductive Roles (cont’d.) Withdrawal • Acting indifferent or passive, resorting to excessive formality, daydreaming, doodling, whispering to others, wandering from the subject

50. Patterns of communication • Who talks? For how long? How often? • At whom do people look when they speak? a. Single-out individuals, possible potential supporters b. The group c. No one