2.7a Structuring the Team / Team Questionnaire

Team number:

Last name:

First name:

E-mail address:

Faculty advisor:

You are being placed in a team of three or four people. Please answer the following questions. It is not necessary nor desirable to spend a long time on any one question or on the entire questionnaire. Provide an answer that reflects your initial reaction. Keep your answers brief and concise. You will have an opportunity to reconsider your answers at a later time.

For your information, the learning objectives of 10.26 are as follows:

a. Analyze a technical problem, conceive a plan for safe experimental investigation, and revise the plan, as needed on the basis of new information.
b. Execute experiments based upon this plan.
c. Analyze experimental data.
d. Present the data appropriately in tabular or graphical form.
e. Communicate the results of the project in a written technical report.
f. Communicate the results of the project in an oral presentation to a technical audience.
g. Work collaboratively on a team with other technical people.
h. Lead a team of technical people working on a project.

Individual Information

1. List ten expectations you have about being on a team.

2. In your past experience as a team member, which of these expectations were met and which expectations were not met?

3. What leadership positions have you held in the past?

4. What leadership skills did you learn?

5. What time management and project management skills do you possess to help the team meet deadlines and manage your project?

6. How will you handle differences in your personal goals compared with other team members' personal goals? For example, if you want an "A" in the course and one of your other team members will be satisfied with a "B," how should your team apportion the work?

7. Which of the following interpersonal communication skills would you like to develop in this course?

a. Remain clear and focused when organizing a project.

b. Be nonjudgmental.

c. Be open minded when others disagree with my opinion.

d. Be confident in my interactions with team members.

e. Understand cultural and gender differences and integrate these differences into the team organization.

f. Delegate tasks.

g. Deal with conflict.

h. Negotiate successfully.

i. Lead a group during conflict and during times of cohesiveness.

j. Hold attention of others through active listening and clear and logical expression of ideas.

Forming the Team

1. What do you think the goals for your team should be for this course?

2. How many hours per week do you think is appropriate for you to spend on this course?

3. How will you assign and rotate roles in the team?

4. What arrangements should be made within your team to

a. review task delegation to make sure that the work is being distributed equitably,

b. prepare action plans and set deadlines, and

c. review the quality of work produced.

5. Establishing ground rules and enforcing them can become a problem on a team. Describe how the team ground rules can be changed if one team member is uncomfortable with a ground rule.

6. Your project isn't going well. Your team leader, although intelligent and well informed, has decided that he/she is the only one who can do the key measurements properly. You have communicated the problem to her/him, but the situation still persists. The project is getting behind schedule because he/she does not have enough time to do all the work alone, and the only tasks that are assigned to you and the other team member are cleanup and setup tasks. How would you handle this situation?

Team Leader Responsibilities

1. Who should report to your faculty advisor at meetings, the recorder, the team leader, or another member?

2. What should be the duties of the team leader in the laboratory, at team meetings with or without your faculty advisor, and in the delegation of tasks within the team?

Communication and Reporting Activities

1. Establishing ground rules and enforcing them can become a problem on a team. How should your team create ground rules, and what should your team do if one member later becomes uncomfortable with a ground rule.

2. Honesty and open communication are important for building trust in a team. What ground rules should your team have for establishing and maintaining open communication, honesty, and sharing information?

3. What would you do if one team member fixates on a particular idea and does not listen to the thoughts of the others?

4. What kind of feedback do you expect from your faculty advisor, and how timely should the feedback be?

5. Reporting progress of the project to your team and associated staff is important. What information do you think will be important to include in a weekly progress report in order to facilitate the team’s efficiency?

Meetings

1. When, where, how often, and for how long should team meetings be held?

2. Should there be a set time each week to meet with your faculty advisor?

3. Who will set the agenda, and to whom will it be distributed?

4. How will interruptions be handled at team meetings?

5. Describe how your team will overcome scheduling problems so that meetings are not missed or the time changed frequently.

6. How will you organize brainstorming sessions during a meeting to make them efficient and creative?

7. How should your team should handle members being late to meetings.

8. How should your team should handle a team member missing one meeting or several meetings.

9. You are a member of a team and the other two members form a subgroup and have informal meetings without you. You feel you want to be kept informed and be part of these discussions. How would you handle this situation?

10. Two of you are participating and making the decisions in the group while your third team member is shy. Although the team member follows your orders and does the tasks well, he/she does tasks only when directed. How would you handle this situation?

Writing and Presentation Skills

1. Some assignments are prepared individually. The team collaborates on some activities that will be used in individual assignments. Describe a plan of action for coordinating the team members in doing the collaborative tasks and then reporting on them individually.

2. What time management tools will you use to insure that assignments are turned in on time?

3. Describe a plan of action for coordinating the team members in writing the team technical paper. The tasks include writing the outline, data analysis and presentation, writing the individual sections, editing, and proof reading. How will final decisions be made concerning technical content and writing style?

4. What will you do if a team member is less skilled in writing than the other team members?

5. Your team members have set up the schedule for writing the paper. Two days before the paper is due, a team member who has part of the writing assignment tells you he/she has not done any work on the paper? How would you handle this situation?

Conflict Resolution

1. Do you need consensus within the team to accomplish team goals?

2. List the set of rules you would establish for dealing with conflict that includes the following areas:

a. Problems created by people outside the team (i.e. other teams, faculty, teaching assistants, staff).

b. Other team members’ performance standard different from your own.

c. Missing deadlines for team collaborative assignments.

d. Different working habits (e.g., doing assignments in advance or under the pressure of a deadline).

e. Gender and ethnic discrimination issues.

3. How will you express negative feelings (anger, frustration, disappointment).

4. How should the team members reward themselves for doing quality work and meeting deadlines?

5. You are a female student on a multiethnic team and you have two male team members who keep telling you that they will meet and discuss the team structure and assignment of project tasks, but they never keep these commitments. Instead, they expect you to formulate the tasks and assign them to each of them. If the tasks require more laboratory time, they expect you to stay to complete them so that they can leave and complete other work or go to baseball practice. How would you handle this situation?

How many minutes did you spend on this questionnaire?

Which questions took the longest time to answer?

Many thanks on behalf of the instructional staff.

You may reset the form if you wish to clear your answers.