Sample by My Essay Writer
What Would Have Helped in Improving Team Dynamics
The biggest problem that the team encountered is that while we realized what we were supposed to accomplish, we failed to implement proper SMART goals (specific, measurable in certain units, achievable, results oriented and should account for time). We approached the activity thinking that we could do it as we pleased and did not determine how particular processes should be implemented, what times certain parts should be submitted and combined and what the results should be in each outcome. The result was a very confusing time, at least from my perspective, when it came to proper project implementation.
From my point of view, I believe we should have taken into account Vrooms Expectancy theory when it came to some members who were part of our group. While I do believe that all of us are here to learn and excel, there were some among us who were “less than enthusiastic” when it came to group work, and I believe that this was a contributing factor behind our decreased rate of performance. Vroom’s expectancy theory has the fundamental belief that people’s behavior is shaped by a conscious choice. In the case of managing performance within a group, this comes in the form of an approach that states that group members can be motivated to work harder and better for the group is if there is a sufficient positive correlation between the effort they put into the work done and reward they are given.
In our group’s case, the lack of adequate SMART goals and the lax attitude we had to the exercise in general likely contributed towards some members of the group developing the notion that the activity was not important and that they were likely not to get much out it. What we should have done from the start is indicate how important the group activity was, state how doing a good job of it would help boost our grades and how, as a whole, all of us were expected to contribute towards the group work. It is likely that if we had implemented this type of behavior from the start, we could have avoided rushing through the work and ending up with the result that we had. [“Write my essay for me?” Get help here.]
When looking at the outcome, I can honestly say that we could have done much better than what we made. Yes, the result may seem nice, but that was more the result of desperate last minute work than the outcome of several days of proper research and development. The development process was lackadaisical; the research was lacking in proper coherence, and we had no organizational structure to speak of when it came to arranging who did what and who was supposed to combine the works.
While I was doing my part of the exercise, I was somewhat confused since I did not know how my section would contribute to the work as a whole and this lack of understanding does show in parts of the final project outcome. You can see what it is, a “slap and paste” method at work where there is an improper implementation of finesse in the final result. The work did turn out “nicely” but it could have been much better and I am not satisfied with the results. We should have had someone focus on doing proper checks on what we were doing and organized things behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, we all did “our own thing” when it came to the project and merely rushed through combining it all together the day before the project was due. I suspect that some of my fellow teammates waited until the very last minute to start on their parts since we had to wait several hours before they submitted their sections. I have to admit that, individually, we are great at what we do since we have our own ways of doing things. However, when we are forced to work together as a group, our different methods just clash with one another, and the result was a mess that fortunately turned out alright.[Need an essay writing service? Find help here.]
The following are the main challenges our team faced:
a.) Lack of Proper Coordination
Simply put, we lacked proper leadership and from the start of the project all the way until the end. We knew what task we had to accomplish and we set out individually to get it done. On the surface this may seem like a good idea; however, without an overarching goal of what sort of arguments, methods, and information we were supposed to focus on, we ended up with information that sometimes contradicted what were attempting to say. Our arguments, points of view and conclusions lacked any form of cohesion, and this led to many arguments during the stage when we were supposed to combine all the work together.
Everyone thought that their perspective was the correct one and vehemently opposed altering or outright removing their contribution to the project. That is one of the reasons why, when you go over our work, you may see some instances where the arguments may seem a bit “strange” or that they lack proper coherence when it comes to previous statements that were given. We tried to do our best, but our lack of good leadership hindered a lot of the progress that we made.
b.) No Goals Were Set
Another of the problems we experienced during the project was a distinct lack of goal setting in the form of project milestones. We should have made a GATT chart when it came to how we approached the project and set up more group meetings to focus on what we should all be achieving with a particular span of time. The problem with our method was that there was no sense of urgency when it came to doing the project.
Even I have to say that I am guilty of putting off my section for a significant bit of time and I happen to think that I am a responsible individual when it comes to school work. Our relaxed policy of completing the project resulted in many of us barely completing the work a day before the submission, and this created a massive mess when it came to combining all the needed work. [Click Essay Writer to order your essay]
We should have set goals on when one part should be completed when that part should be connected with the work of other people and how it should be edited and arranged. Unfortunately, we did not do this and just wrote based on what we thought at the time as a relatively good process of just getting the work done and submitted.
c.) Insufficient Communication
The last problem we encountered was insufficient communication when it came to the project and our intended outcomes. This was reflected in the arguments we had that I mentioned earlier on that caused us a lot of headaches. At the start of the project we did talk about the different parts, but we did not create an overarching plan regarding what the project should focus on. We simply got each part and concentrated on that to the exclusion of all else.
While we were working on our parts, there was no communication going on between the different group members, no sharing of ideas, no back and forth discussions, and no emails containing information that one of us would find interesting or relevant. We all thought, at the time, that it was unnecessary and that communicating with one another would simply be too bothersome. Unfortunately, this proved to be our undoing when it was time to combine all our work. If we had communicated with each other and addressed problems before it was time to combine all our work, we could have done a much better job.
Conclusion
Overall, I have to reiterate what I said earlier that the project outcome could have been much better if we simply planned things out from the start and set goals. However, this is all based on hindsight and, as such, there is nothing I can do about what happened in the past. If there is one positive thing that I can take away from this exercise is that I now know what I should do when it comes to other group projects like this in the future.
