Chapter 8 Flashcards
Brainstorming
A freewheeling, face-to-face meeting where team members aren’t allowed to criticize, but are encouraged to speak freely, generate as many ideas as possible, and build on the ideas of others.
Brooks’ law
The principle that adding more people to a late software project only makes it later. Also called the mythical man-month.
Constructive Conflict
A type of conflict in which people focus their discussion on the issue while maintaining respect for people having other points of view.
•Problem: constructive conflict easily slides into personal attacks
Electronic Brainstorming
A form of brainstorming that relies on networked computers for submitting and sharing creative ideas.
Evaluation Apprehension
A decision making problem that occurs when individuals are reluctant to mention ideas that seem silly because they believe (often correctly) that other team members are silently evaluating them.
Groupthink
The tendency of highly cohesive groups to value consensus at the price of decision quality
Nominal Group Technique
A variation of brainstorming consisting of three stages: participants (1) silently and independently document their ideas, (2) collectively describe these ideas to the other team members without critique, and (3) silently and independently evaluate the ideas presented.
Norms
The informal rules and shared expectations that groups establish to regulate the behaviour of their members.
Process Losses
Resources (including time and energy) expended toward team development and maintenance rather than the task.
Productive Blocking
A time constraint in team decision making due to the procedural requirement that only one person may speak at a time.
Role
A set of behaviours that people are expected to perform because of the positions they hold in a team and organization.
Self-Directed Teams (SDTs)
Cross-functional work groups that are organized around work processes, that complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks, and that have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks.
Social Loafing
The problem that occurs when people exert less effort (and usually perform at a lower level) when working in teams than when working alone.
Task interdependence
The extent to which team members must share materials, information, or expertise in order to perform their jobs.
Team building
A process that consists of formal activities intended to improve the development and functioning of a work team.
Teams Cohesion
The degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members.
Virtual Teams
Teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries, and are linked through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks.
Teams
•Groups of two or more people
•Exist to fulfill a purpose
•Interdependent – interact and influence each other
•Mutually accountable for achieving common goals
•Perceive themselves as a social entity
- organizational and team environment
- team processes
- team design
- team effectiveness
A) task characteristics
B) team size
C) team composition
- reciprocal
- sequential
- pooled
- forming
- storming
- norming
- performing
- adjourning
- member similarity
- team size
- member interaction
- somewhat difficult entry
- team success
- external competition and challenges
A) moderately high
B) high
C) moderately low
D) low
A) Identification
B) Knowledge
C) Calculus
Advantages & Disadvantages of Teams
Disadvantages
–Individuals better/faster on some tasks
–Process losses: cost of developing and maintaining teams
–Social loafing
Advantages
–Make better decisions
–Make better products/services
–Higher employee engagement
Task Characteristics
Better when tasks are clear, easy to implement
–learn roles faster, easier to become cohesive
–ill-defined tasks require members with diverse backgrounds and more time to coordinate
Task interdependence
–Degree to which a task requires employees to share inputs or outcomes or interact while executing their work.
Team Composition and Diversity
Less Diverse
- •Less conflict
•Faster team development
•Perform better on cooperative tasks
•Better coordination
•Higher satisfaction of team members
More Diverse
- •More conflict
•Slower team development
•Perform better on complex problems
•More creative
•Represent various viewpoints well
What are the Five C’s of competency?
-
Cooperating
- Share resources
- Accommodate others
-
Coordinating
- Align work with others
- Keep team on track
-
Communicating
- Share inforamtion freely, efficiently, respectfully
- Listen actively
-
Comforting
- Show empathy
- Provide psych. comfort
- Build confidence
-
Conflict Resolving
- Diagnose conflict sources
- Use best conflict handling style
Team Cohesiveness Outcomes
- Motivated to remain members
- Willing to share information
- Strong interpersonal bonds
- Resolve conflict effectively
- Better interpersonal relationships
Influences of Team Cohesian Part 1
Influences of Team Cohesian Part 2
Forming
- Politeness & uncertainty in this stage
- Use this opportunity to establish clear, realistic goals (along with commitment!)
Storming
If disagreement about goals, roles, norms (rules, behaviours, etc.) is not settled, remember to restrict conflict to these task-related issues
Norming
- Agreement on norms, team roles, etc.
- Groups need both task-oriented roles (scribe/summarizer, devil’s advocate) & relationship-oriented roles (facilitator, harmonizer)
- Balanced teams need several types of roles
Performing
- Mostly task-oriented, but morale is good
- Group members identify problems without offending anyone; admit errors; change direction if needed; ask for help
Team decision constraints
- Time constraints
- Evaluation apprehension
- Conformity to peer pressure
- Groupthink (specifcially overconfidence)
Structures that improve decision making
Brainstorming
- Generate ideas through “free-wheeling” and no criticism
Nominal group technique
- Highly structured approach to generating and prioritizing ideas
Delphi technique
- Series of questionnaires used to generate and evaluate ideas
Computer-mediated decision-making
