User talk:Obgroupreport

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TEAM DESIGN (recommendations refrence: The Gower Handbook of Management by Dennis Lock)
1.	Team design

1.1	Task Characteristics

1.1.1	The team was tasked to clear but difficult tasks. Initially they had to submit joint monthly account statements and issues. This took more time for the other firms to resolve the different accounting documentation procedures. They eventually resolved the matter by standardizing the monthly report.

Their other task was to come up with new strategy for attracting more shipping firm business. This task would require them to communicate with each other to brain storm and agree on a plan for submission to the managing partner. It would cause as a problem as communication is one of the team’s weaknesses as they live quite some distance from each other.

There was no task interdependence. There was poor coordination as there was a communication barrier due to them working separately instead of working as a group. The team did not set up a common goal. The team showed low interdependence and exercised pooled interdependence by working individually.

1.2	Team Size 1.2.1	A team needs to be small yet large enough to accomplish a task. In this case, the author complains that the project was taking up most of his time, indicating the task might be too much for four people to handle.

1.3	 Team Composition 1.3.1	There was no motivation to work as a team. They worked separately and frequently had disagreements. They are professional accountants and working as a team to come up with a new strategy for attracting more shipping firm business is not their specialty. They had frequent disagreements and did not understand each other. The team can be classified as heterogeneous.

2.	Recommendations

2.1.	Plan

2.1.1.	It is vital for all team members to have a clear and shared understanding of the project. In a small team, it is best to involve every member in coming up with a plan. This ensures that it is both realistic and believed in. The team should plan, adapt and improvise on the plan.

2.2.	Communication

2.2.1.	Since they are working apart, the team should initiate formal meetings such as regular reports, meetings and circulate lists.

The team members should talk on the phone regularly, stay in touch thru conference calls, online meetings (e.g. Windows Live Messenger), or video conferencing. Online meetings allow access to sharing and exchanging of documents and group discussions. This technology saves time and rids of misunderstandings.

Still, meeting online and video conferencing alone isn’t enough to improve relations between members. Team members should meet up for discussions to decrease conflicts and produce good performance. In order to do so, the company should invest on these members’ traveling expenses. They can arrange a centralized meeting place and send the members there.