Appendix G

Responses and Outcomes For Team Video 5: Jayme, Megan, and Joe

Several professional managers and instructors viewed Team Video 5 and offered their comments and advice.

What are your thoughts on this group?

Ken West, Operations Research Manager: (laughing) I’ve seen this so many times. Whether he is or not, Joe has set himself to be the technical expert. I don’t know whether it’s because “I’m the guy and you two are the girls,” or whatnot, but he’s making all kinds of blanket statements out there that have no basis whatsoever! (laughing) Joe is being obstinate and not listening, and the girls are not being successful at convincing him. They’re putting forth their ideas, but he’s just not seeing it.

Tim Monroe, Deputy Chief Traffic Engineer: The guy’s not listening well. I have the idea that he has things set in his mind already and he’s not even trying to understand what their point is. Just because you’re technically better at getting a color up on the screen doesn’t mean necessarily it’s got to be your color. . . . He needs to realize that other people read this thing and it’s not necessarily technical people that you’re trying to communicate to.

What would you recommend to this team?

Ken West: At this point in time, the best thing to do is bring in a third party. Bring in somebody else and say, “Just take a look at this and give us an honest opinion of what you think about it.” In my world, I just bring in the user, and the user takes a look at it and says that they like it or they don’t like it. . . . They could also try to set some ground rules about how they are going to handle disagreements. They could try majority vote, but in this particular case that could also lead to some stalemates because Joe is likely to say, “Well, you two are just ganging up on me, so I’ll refuse to play.”

Carla Anderson, Technical Writing Instructor: Well, they seem to have decided that they’re going to take a “majority rules” approach, but Joe is really unhappy with that. Based on what I’ve seen here, I don’t think he’s ever going to hear what the women are saying. . . . I would recommend that they prepare two or three versions of the layout and then ask the instructor to comment on which one is best. Or find some other way of bringing the instructor into the process. Joe might hear things from an authority that he won’t hear from his teammates. Plus, if he continues to act like this in front of the instructor, they have found a neutral way to alert the instructor to problems in the team.

Sample Documents

Keeping Your Team Organized

Table 1.2. Task schedule from a project that switches from face-to-face to layered collaboration

Table 2.1. Task schedule for a three-person group working on an instruction manual

Meeting minutes

Team Preparation Worksheet

Team Charter

Task Schedule (with contribution values)

Gantt chart for a simple project

Communicating about Team Meetings

Meeting agenda sent via e-mail

Friendly reminder after a missed meeting

E-mail after a series of missed meetings

E-mail that moves the conversation to writing

E-mail suggesting that the team consider an alternate draft

Communicating about the Revision Process

E-mail requesting feedback

E-mail handing off a draft to be directly revised

E-mail asking a teammate to clarify a suggestion

E-mail asking the team to reconsider some revisions

E-mail reminding a teammate about suggestions for revision

E-mail asking the team to reconsider some revisions

E-mail requesting more thorough feedback

Communicating about Deadlines

A gentle reminder that a deadline has passed

A more pointed reminder that a deadline has passed

Communicating with Your Instructor

E-mail notifying the instructor about a problem

E-mail to an instructor for a missed deadline

E-mail notifying an instructor that a teammate is missing