Lucerne University of Applied Science and Art Design Management International Fall Semester 2014 Tutor Sarah R체edi
Organizational Behaviour Team Air Design (Susann von Bornst채dt, Fabian Jason Bollhalder, Livia Rahel B체hlmann)
Table of Content Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Strengths, Weaknesses and Values
Chapter 5 Leadership and Responsibilities 5.1 Definition of a leader
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2.1 Group name 3
5.2 Responsibilities of Team Leader
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2.2 Individual personalities 3
5.3 Responsibilities of Team Members
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2.3 Individual values 3
5.4 Different Styles of Leadership
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2.4 Strengths and weaknesses 4
5.5 Adaption of Leadership
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2.5 Benefit for the team 4
5.6 Action Plan 12
2.6 Mixing the colors together
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5.7 Reflection 13
2.7 Table of the four different personalities
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Chapter 6 Values and Mission Statement 6.1 Values 14
2.8 Reflection 5
Chapter 3 Roles, Expectation and Guidelines 3.1 Goals of our Group
6.2 Fitting Individual 14 6
6.3 Mission Statement 14
3.2 Roles and Responsibilities 6
6.4 Action Plan 14
3.3 Ground Rules 6
6.5 Reflection 15
3.4 Design Process 7
Chapter 7 Evaluation and Lessons Learned 7.1 Six Characteristics of Ideal Teamwork
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7.2 Effectiveness of Teams
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7.3 & 7.4 Evaluation of our teamwork &
3.5 Reflection 7
Chapter 4 Motivation and Feedback 4.1 Story of Motivation
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4.2 Group Work Issues 9
Possible Improvements 17
4.3 Examplary Feedback 9
7.5 Lessons Learned 18
7.6 Reflection 19
4.4 Feedback Culture within the Team
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4.5 Action Plan 10 1 4.6 Reflection 11
Appendix
Chapter 1 Introduction The organizational behavior is just as important as its structure as its how the corporate culture is built and improves the company’s efficiency and effectiveness. The organizational behavior includes discovering and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals, settings roles and expectations, understanding motivational pushes, understanding leadership and responsibilities and thereafter understanding the organizations values and mission statement. By assessing all these aspects of an organization you can expect to have a strong culture and have an ideal working environment with strong teamwork.
Susann von Bornstädt
Fabian Bollhalder
Livia BĂźhlmann 2
Chapter 2 Strengths, Weaknesses and Values 2.1 Group name Air Design comes as our design agencies goal is to come up with the most radical innovations to the most outragous problems. We like to flow through different fields and try out new projects that help us build as a team and learn more every step of the way. 2.2 Individual personalities Fabian Bollhalder has shown to be a blue. Susann von Bornstädt is the group’s green. Livia Bühlmann is a yellow.
2.3 Individual values “I was able to find one value that contains all values that are important to me. It is ‘loving’. When one faces a situation lovingly, he automatically will act respectful. Love is one of the greatest powers. It changes people’s mindset to become tolerant and ambitious. Because of love, one can become motivated and inspired. Love can even turn the most frightened person into a brave hero. Another characteristic of love is that it creates loyalty, friendliness and helpfulness. Moreover, there is no love without passion. Taking all this into account, ‘loving’ includes it all.” Susann
“My three core values include being open-minded, inspiring/visionary and respected/admired by others. Being open-minded has come natural to me moving around the globe, constantly getting in contact with new and different mindsets. The reason I’ve adapted an open-minded approach is that I understand it helps in gaining the most creative ideas as many different mindsets have unique inputs. Being inspiring and visionary is my second core trait. With this I feel that having a vision and being able to convince others of the same vision and get them on board is crucial in a design industry. The third and final core value is being respected and admired by others. By including my other two core values I believe to achieve the third one as well. “ Fabian
“The three most important values for me are being honest, tolerant and passionate. If I am working in a tolerant environment, I will be totally honest. If this is not the case, honesty cannot be put into practice because it will not be tolerated. Passion is an important value for me because it makes me wanting to go for the best possible.” Livia 3
2.4 Strengths and weaknesses “My greatest strengths are being highly self-disciplined, accurate, well organized and creative. Sometimes, my strengths turn into weaknesses when accuracy leads to overthinking and focusing too strong on details.“ Susann
“Some of my strengths include: putting a lot of time and effort into ideas that I believe are strong, being curious into the whole world and how things are interconnected, having a lot of energy, being easily heard, making a presence and enjoying taking risks instead of being scared of them. Some of my weaknesses include being impatient and lacking self-discipline when being forced to do a task where I don’t agree on.“ Fabian
“I am good at dealing with people. The harmony within a group is important to me. I can contribute the most when I feel everyone is able and wants to contribute. I do no balk investing time into group spirit. Another strength of mine is dealing with organisational questions and issues. I don’t feel comfortable if I do not know what to do and why to do. As people are important to me, I have difficulties to decide objectively. In addition, I do not like conflicts and try to avoid them.” Livia
2.5 Benefit for the team As Livia likes to deal with the organizational side of project, she can provide the team with the necessary organization tools. She can help the process move forward effectivly by presenting different methods. As Livia values harmony, she helps to include everyone in the team and fosters the development of a corporate culture. Susann’s analytical skills and her accuracy help the team to ensure a high quality level. Her questioning and critical thinking fosters discussions to view the subject from another perspective. Thereby, she raises ideas which help other team members to build upon. Fabian can benefit the team by using his strengths of being energetic, having a strong presence and voice and taking risks. The energy level that is displayed by Fabian is often transferred into the group session and picks up the level of involvement from all group members. By having a strong voice and presence Fabian is a suitable candidate when expressing our ideas as Air Design to the external world as he can easily and clearly convince viewers of ideas. Risk-taking is always important when attempting radical innovation. By enjoying risks, Fabian can influence our overall decisions to ensure we reach radical solutions. 2.6 Mixing the colours together Some colors work better as a team than others. Including in a team the color yellow improves the relationship between the colors green, blue and red since yellow is a harmonizer and tries to solve conflicts. Green and blue are likely to have a conflict since green is more pessimistic and blue more optimistic. From authority point of view, blue and red could clash against each other since red likes to take leadership and blue hates to be controlled. Moreover, yellow and red could conflict since red is not people-oriented and yellow strongly is. However, a team can learn how to deal constructively with disagreements and conflicts between personality types. Thereby, team members have to be conscious about their own and their team member’s strengths and weaknesses in order to implement each other. Green can learn from blue by being more optimistic and spontaneously. Blue can learn from green by analyzing and discussing task in detail. Red should try to focus more on people’s feelings whereas yellow should become more efficient in decision-making.
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2.8 Reflection In our group, there is a green (Susann), blue (Fabian) and yellow (Livia). Livia has to harmonize between Susann and Fabian who sometimes share different opinions. Fabian - who has a tendency for red – has to take control in the decision-making process. 2.7 Table of the four different personalities In the table below, we summarized the different characteristics of the colours. People tend to show aspects of different colors. Therefore, it is normally not possible to find the exact matching color. It is likely that people share tendencies to multiple colors. As we do not have all four colors in our team, Fabian and Livia (both showing tendencies towards red) need to transform between the roles.
Description
Strengths Weaknesses
Ways of working
Red Leader / Promoter
Blue Creator / Performer
Green Analyzer / Organzizer
Yellow Helper / Support
Assertive Manager Inflexible, hates wasting time In charge, quick, result-orientated
Imaginative changemaker Impulisve, hates to be controlled Creative activities, fun environment
Accurate & neat worker Pessimistics, hates critics
Supportive team worker Indecisive, hates conflict
Development Develop relati- Concentrate onships on detail, less discussion of ideas 5
Works carefully, Develop relahigh quality tionship and harmonious environment More optimiLess stic, try new development things without of relationships knowing details more result focused
Making the color personality test helped us to increase awareness about one’s own and the team members’ personality. We defined our roles according to the colors which we resemble. Susann received the position of a anthropologist, Fabian received the position as a design & product manager and Livia became the project manager. The role division helped us to set clear responsibilities to create a fundament for our operational functioning. Afterwards, we discussed individual values. Knowing these was essential to create a corporate culture for our team. It was a must that the individual values are compatible with the values of the group. Thereby, a personal identification with the team and a nice working atmosphere was created. Identifying one’s strengths and weaknesses helped us to split task in an effective way according to one’s strengths. For instance: Susann received writing tasks because of her accuracy and structuredness. To know one’s own and each team members’ weakness helped to prevent conflicts. For instance: Fabian - as being rather impatient - felt less time pressured by having a clear meeting structure and clear timelines. In the end of lesson 2, we analyzed each team member’s benefits. This led to an increased common acknowledgement within the group. We included ‘acknowledgement’ as a value in our team charter since it created a positive and motivated working atmosphere. Generally, we found out that each our team is totally diverse regarding character, attitude and background. Having different colors, we had to learn how to deal with each other. The best way was by addressing openly questions and worries. By discussing, the group respected that Susann talks less than others but still fully participates the team by giving thoughtful ideas. It was essential to talk about these differences to avoid a misunderstanding.
Chapter 3 Roles, Expectations and Guidelines 3.1 Goals of our Group As we want to achieve one common goal, we first had to agree on what exactly this goal is. As our Design Agency was just born one week earlier, we could only rely on what has been discussed during the founding discussion. As an updated version, we decided on the following goal: Air Design wants to change the norms of the future life by transforming everyday activities into long lasting experiences. This goal is not measurable and not specified to our situations as students. Therefore, we set two internal goals: The outcome of this project should be presentable in a portfolio for future applications. Thereby, we ensure that we are delivering exceptional quality. This helps us to keep in mind why we are doing all this work: We want to learn something and want to get the most out of these three years. The other goal targets the evaluation by lecturers: We want to achieve at least the grade 5.0. 3.2 Roles and Responsibilities We want to make sure that working in this team is fruitful, structured and effective. Therefore, we defined roles and assigned them to different members. The tasks for the different roles are aligned to the project plan. Each team member is responsible for one or two phases. Project Manager Livia Bühlmann is responsible for the project planning and the two phases planning and closing. Additional tasks for the project leader are to ensure the well-being of the group, to address difficulties (social and professional) and to find a solution within the group, to make sure the timing is met and to update the project tasks.
As a project manager, Livia has to have the overview of the whole project. Moreover, she has to stay positive and be motivational for the other team members. In case of a mistake, the project manager has to take accountability and responsibility of his team members. Design & Product Manager Fabian Bollhalder is the creative head of our team. He is responsible for the creation phase including the ideation, evaluation and finalisation. Additional tasks of the creative head is to pack in a lot of creative sessions and techniques. Anthropologist Susann von Bornstädt is responsible for the research and analysis phase of our working process. Through critical questions, Susann is ensuring the quality and thoughtfulness of our project. As a common ground, we developed the following expectations:
• At Air Design, we do not want members stuck in a position: We appreciate overlapping roles and want to stay open-minded.
• Everyone gives their best and fulfils his/her task to the fullest. • We believe in each other. With these expectations in mind, we state that we do not only want to fulfil the roles to the best but also help other team members to reach their goals. 3.3 Ground Rules Besides sharing a common ground and knowing each others expectations, we want to avoid conflicts by having basic rules how we work together. Defining those ground rules is the first step. Bringing them to life is the second.
Inspire each other! Structure the work! No delay of work! 6
3.4. Design Process As we are working on a product development, we had to define our design process beforehand. The results are based on the IDEO Human Centered Design Process and on what we learnt in the previous lectures “Design Thinking�. Those two models are merged in our project plan.
Plan
Research
Analyze
generate Ideas
evaluate Ideas
synthesis Ideas
Finalize
iteration
3.5 Reflection In the beginning, it was difficult to identify common group goals since our design agency was just born one week earlier. We defined two measureable goals: achieving at least a 5.0 in the NPD project and having the goal being able to present the documentation in our portfolio for future applications. These goals helped us to find a common base for our motivation and to reduce the danger of conflicts since Susann had higher grade expectations than Fabian. Defining roles and responsibilities from the beginning raised realistic expectations among group members and lead to efficient task division. Thereby, the colors were useful as well. Since Fabian and Livia are partly red, we first had difficulties to decide which one should be the project manager. Analyzing strengths and weaknesses helped us to find out that Fabian has a greater tendency towards creativity and Livia towards organization. Including these findings, it was easier to make a proper decision. Giving space for growth and flexibility, we defined as a ground rule that defined 7
roles should not entirely be limited to one person. Creative thoughts should come from the whole group and not from the design manager only. Therefore, we sometimes switched tasks to see different points of view. The common ground rules as well as the design process created guidelines throughout our working process. These guidelines were essential to write the project plan and the time line. Stating clear phases helped to gain the overview and to decide for the right tasks. Livia coordinated our timeline and set up the task for the next meetings via a meeting protocol. Even with Livia being our project manager, we decided of not having a concrete leader since we are a very small group. Having a defined corporate culture, goals and ground roles replaced an absolute leadership. Task fulfillment was granted due to a strong positive group pressure not wanting to disappoint other team members.
Chapter 4 Motivation and Feedback 4.1 Story of Motivation
“Motivation is absolutely critical for me. If I’m highly motivated to do an assignment or a task, no one can stop me. However, without motivation, it‘s almost impossible to get me to do quality work. The way I feel best motivated is intrinsicly. When I’m working towards a goal and see an interesting and radical idea, I love to work and achieve the best outcome. I’m not only intrinsically motivated though, I do love different factors of extrinsic motivation such as bonuses and a nice lifestyle. These extrinsic motivational means are however not as powerful in pushing me to accomplish my work as the intrinsic motivational ones.” (Fabian)
“I am most motivated if I know that I can rely on those working together. I am working part-time in catering sometimes even having the responsibility of the whole event. This was happening in July at a really big event and I had to invest a lot of time into planning. But because I knew that great people were in the team, the task itself was appealing to me and I was confronted with a challenge I wanted to accomplish. I was really into it. On one hand, this shows my intrinsic motivation but also points to some extrensics motivation. I want that the customer, the catering company and of course the employees are happy. The fitting theories are the Two-factor theory and the Equity theory as I like to compare my results with others. As the NPD project gives us the opportunity to use in practice what we‘ve learnt in various courses, I appreciate this opportunity. I feel the other group members strive for the best possible outcome and I want to contribute as much as I can.” (Livia)
“The NPD project requires much time and causes the planning of priorities. Spare time is often reduced in order to fulfil the NPD tasks. Still, I keep motivated since I know that the other team members are giving their best as well. I am also excited about experiencing the design process and about improving my ability to positively influence the team spirit. Moreover, achieving at least the grade 5.0 by setting weekly tasks to use my final outcome for my portfolio is an additional motivation as well. By analysing, I found out that my motivation can be described with the equity/fairness theory. By comparing my working result with the results of other team members’, I calculate how much time and effort I should invest in the project. By focusing on using the project outcome for application purpose, I also can describe my motivation in terms of the goal setting theory. My goal is specific (using document for portfolio), measurable (achieving grade 5.0), actionable (setting weekly tasks), realistic (5.0 meets expectations of other group members as well) and timed (end of project)“ (Susann) 8
4.2 Group Work Issues
Well Working Things
Things to Improve
Relation / Communication Issues
Task Issues
• Excellent independent work ef-
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• Checking relevance of tasks before fort from each team member doing them • Great workflow • Providing better equipment (post• Continuous volunteering for tasks its, blank paper, etc.) • Collecting ideas for final solution during entire process • Encouragement to handle on-going task • Encouragement to gain background knowledge about topic • Team is able to make compromi-
• Pointing out goals of the meeting
• Concentrated working
• Having more fun as a group
ses in order to make decisions atmosphere
• Planning content of meeting
in the beginning
ahead
•
our materials and ideas
•
• Having an office space to place • Respecting each other
• • •
(playing games in the beginning of meeting, telling jokes, etc.) flexibility to break routine (e.g. changing surrounding) motivation from the beginning (e.g. introducing a motivation ritual) encouragement to come up with crazy ideas even when these seem illogical at first glance No judgment during brainstorming Clearly defined dates for meeting
Generally, it has to be said that all team members are satisfied with the functioning of the team and that the entire content of the column named ‘things to be improved’ are no serious problems but rather suggestions where slight improvements can be done. In order to do these improvements, the group needs an ‘emotional tank’ which helps that the motivational level stays high. The level of the emotional tank depends on getting enough sleep, keeping one’s humor, having a good laughter as a group, being passionate to motivate each other and knowing the benefit of each activity to satisfy goal-motivated team members. 4.3. Examplary Feedback Problem: Pascal is very rude to Christina and always judges what we says. This makes her keep quite. Proper feedback: “I appreciate that you are always being honest and show your point of view. However, I think your communication is harsh towards Christina and puts her willingness to speak down. I hope you can change your attitude and rather support her.” 4.4. Feedback culture within the team The team will provide immediate feedback in our weekly meetings. Moreover, there will be a 15-minute-feedback-session after each project phase. This feedback will focus on each team member’s achievement of each phases and how each team member achieved the given tasks.
4.5. Action Plan What will be done: • collecting ideas about final solutions • providing feedback • motivational introduction for each team session Who will lead the activities with whom:
• the team member Livia will create a pin-wall to collect final solutions • the whole team will provide individual feedback to each team member as well
as to the general functioning of the group • the team member Livia will introduce the team to a game which will be used as a motivational opening of each team session How: • in our office space will be chosen a blank space on the wall to create a pin-wall • spontaneous feedback will be given immediately within weekly meetings and planned feedback will be given in the end of each project phase within a 15-minute-feedback-session • playing ‘Jungle Speed’ in the beginning of the session will lighten the mood and motivate the group When: • the pin-wall will be made immediately • the next-planned-feedback session will be after finishing the current phase, called research phase • playing ‘Jungle Speed’ will be introduced in the next group meeting Goal definitions:
• We will provide space for each team member to collect ideas about final solu-
tions by Livia building immediately a pin-wall in our office space. • We will include a 15-minute-feedback-session after each project phase and the opportunity for spontaneous feedback in each team meeting as well. Feedback will be given to the whole group as well as to individual members of what and how they did their tasks. • We will improve our motivational level by Livia introducing the game ‘Jungle Speed’ which we will play in the beginning of each team meeting from now on.
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4.6 Reflection Learning about motivation and the different theories behind it helped influence our teams overall culture and our ability to give quality feedback to each other. Discussing the matter of having either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation helped us evaluate what makes each of our team members want to do their ultimate best. Whilst some of us are more goal orientated and therefore have a Goal Setting theory others are more motivated by bonuses and the Expectancy theory. Analyzing the things that work well within the group and the things that should be improved was a great method of analyzing the emotional tank. By understanding the emotional tank and what effects it, us as a group knows how to always keep the tank full, therefore having highly productive working environment.
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Chapter 5 Leadership and Responsibilities 5.1 Definition of a leader A leader ensures that the goal is reached as a whole team. A leader does this by being clear in what is expected from the project and the other group members. The leader is responsible on keeping and maintaining an overview of the entire process to forecast any issues that may occur. Making sure the entire team is engaged and participating is the responsibility of the leader. However, in the event where something goes wrong, the leader must also take responsibility and accountably from the people below him. 5.2 Responsibilities of Team Leader • Being clear in what you expect • Maintaining an overview • Leading by example • Giving way to enable others to participate • Taking responsibility and accountability These are in no given order. 5.3 Responsibilities of Team Memebers • Work by example • Know the goal/aim • Complete your tasks • Stand up for your cause/company • Do your best 5.4 Different Styles of Leadership
• Dictator: leader decides if it must be done, how he wants it
• Laisser-faire: leader gives the power to decide completely to the members
• Participator: hands-on and supports its team • Democratic: everybody is taken into account
5.5 Adaption of Leadership The leadership style must change based on the type of work that is being preformed. In an example of a factory having multiple repetitive work with low skill level, a leader must be more strict and informative where as in a creative design studio, leadership can be much more flexibel allowing the workers more freedom. Although the style of leadership changes, the definition remains the same. The leader is responsible and ensures that the objective of the organization is met by the whole team. 5.6 Action Plan What will be done: • We will still devide the leadership-responsabilities within our group. • However, we will try out different leadership styles in order to see how the people react. Who will lead the activities with whom:
• Livia prepare the needed material, but the other two memebers have to have the knowledge and motivation to participate.
How:
• Livia prepares cards with different leadership styles on them. During the project,
each team members is leading one meeting. Before this meeting, the leader has to draw a card and adapt the style during the meeting.
When:
• As the three of us divided the leadership according to phases, Susann will do her task during the phase of analyzing, Fabian during creation and Livia during the last phase, the closing.
Goal definitions:
• Before the group starts designing the team poster, everyone has experienced a randomly chosen leadership style and reflected on the effect of it within the group.
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5.7 Reflection During class, we looked at finding not just a definition of a leader but a perfect definition of how we as a group would define a leader. We did this by first playing a little activity where we had different definitions of leaders and we had to vote on our top 5. We quickly saw that there was a large correlation between what we each thought of a leadership definition. This was a relieve as it stabilized our team culture. Although there were a majority of similarities within the group, there were a few exceptions where we had to discuss and explain our thoughts. By doing this, we had the chance to build on each others knowledge of what others thought of leadership as well as convince each other of our different opinions. Once we had completed the exercise, we looked at defining the responsibilities of a leader and the different team members. Once again, it was a very calming result as we agreed on most aspects. Although we all had the same mindset, it was a nice activity to get it down on paper and out of our thoughts to insure we were all on the same level. As within our group, we do not have a permanent leader. We always rotate the leader. By insuring everyone has the same common thought of a leader, we can insure that one of us will never act in a different moral manner than the other whilst in the role of the leader.
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Chapter 6 Values and Mission Statement 6.1 Values • If you make a mistake, own up to it because it is okay to make mistakes. • Use your group members as a sounding board to hear their opinions. • We work together to overcome challenges. • If someone approaches you for assistance: Help him or her right away or as soon as possible. • If you do something brilliant then your work gets acknowledged. 6.2 A fitting individual in our group should… … have goals and aspiration. … be motivated … be open-minded … be respectable … be honest. … be creative and crazy. 6.3 Mission Statement Everyday, we look at improving our own and each others skills and mind-sets and thereby improving our collective future. 6.4 Action Plan What will be done: • providing feedback • getting inspired within the group • getting inputs from the outside • enriching our team with different personalities (with the HR we have)
Who will lead the activities with whom: • The leader of the new phase we enter has to make sure we do provide feedback. • To share our inspiration and knwoledge we do not need a leader. • Susann will invite people of the different departments of the school. She will focus on persons she met during the project module. • Fabian does introduce two roles which have to be played during a meeting. How:
• The whole Group will take 5 minutes to think about a feedback to the other.
Each person then has 90 seconds to give a correct feedback to each other. We make sure to take the feedback rules into account. The benefit of this is that everyone knows what he did good and what bad and therefore can work on it during the project. • Knowledge and inspiration is shared to each other. In this way we can pass on motivation, enthusiasm as well as knowledge. For this, we use our Facebookgroup. • People form different areas of expertise will be invited to our meetings. By using a variety of creative problem solving techniques, we will conduct brainstorm sessions. We hope to generate more and different ideas than we would do internally. • During defined timespans, we will switch roles within the group. This will help us to see the perspective of other people. The different roles - like the Devils Advocate, the Inventor etc. - will be assigned in the end of the analysis-phase. When:
• Feedback is provided as it occurs and whenever the project goes into a next
phase. • We want to continously inspire each other. • The brainstorming session will take place during ideation. • As the three of us divided the leadership according to phases, Susann will do her task during the phase of analyzing, Fabian during creation and Livia during the last phase, the closing. 14
6.5 Reflection As we went through the “Corporate Culture� test, we discussed possible issues and how each individual would deal with them. It helped us to evaluate possible discrepancies in how the reaction to such problem would be and to find a common way in dealing with them. To transform our values into a mission statement for our group proved to be difficult. We had to discuss what belongs into a mission statement and what not. Furthermore, we wanted to come up with something which represents our daily way of working and the spirit of our team.
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Chapter 7 Evaluation and Lessons Learned 7.1 Six Characteristics of Ideal Teamwork
7.2 Effectiveness of Teams
Common Objective To have an effective team, you must ensure the team is all striving for the same common objective. If there is a discrepancy between teams aims and objectives, everyone will be producing work on different levels of quality.
Effective teams do meet the 6 characteristics of ideal teamwork. Less effective teams do not fulfil those criteria or not enough of it. This can become apparent as follows:
Common Culture There must be a strong team culture in place that everyone follows in terms of working with each other and in the environment. By having a team culture, everyone is aware how to act upon different situations resulting in less dispute.
Common Objective Each of the team members strive into different directions. Common Culture The different team members does not share values and have a different way of working in teams. Definded Roles & Responsibilities The roles in the team were never discussed. Therefore nobody knows what is asked of him/her.
Defined Roles & Responsibilities By having defined roles and responsibilities, everyone is aware of what they need to do and who they need to go to in the event of having any problems.
Clear Tasks and timeframes Tasks are not communicated properly or/and not assigned to one person. That is why timeframes will no be met – or nobody will be aware of it.
Clear tasks & timeline Clear tasks and timeframes ensure that the project is planned from the start. This makes sure that the project is also completed on time with high quality.
HR up to the par As a team is only as good as its weakest member and one position is not filled properly, the team will have difficulties in achieving its goal. Nevertheless as a team, you try to develop yourself and your group members. So do not blame uneffectivenes to your weakest member!
HR up to the par A team is only as strong as its weakest player. Therefore, all the team members must be at the same level rather than pulling and slowing down the team. Diverse Team By having a diverse team, there are a lot of different methods and mentality. These result in more innovative and radical solutions.
Diverse Team Especially in creative work, it is crucial to have different mindsets in a team. If your team does not fulfil this criteria, you should assign different roles - speaking of mindset and behaviour - to the team in order to stay inspired and achieve the best possible. 16
7.3 & 7.4 Evaluation of our teamwork & Possible Improvements Evaluation Graded 1-5 (5 being the best) 4 We have a common goal to achieve something we all can be proud of. But we have two different reasons: one is a to achieve a good mark, the other is to have a outcome that we can proudly put into our portfolio.
Improvements As all team members agree on both aspects but value them differently we could rise awareness of this. We do not see the need of influencing somebody opinion on this too strongly because both reasons lead to our common goal.
Common Culture
3 We have set ground rules that have slowly developed into a culture we are all comfortable to work in. Although we have a strong culture we are always transforming and trying new methods.
We see the group culture as something on-going. In this sense we are aware of the potential lying in this point but we trust our team to continuously work on this point as the project evolves. At the moment we do not plan any specific actions.
Defined Roles & Responsibilities
2 We had set up different roles at the start of the project however these have not been transformed into a practical working environment.
As we defined clear roles and distributed overall responsibility we want to transform those theoretical roles into practical ones and really live them during our meetings.
Tasks & Timelines
4 Tasks are distributed very well at the end of every meeting and a plan for the next meeting is also created. The only issue is we slightly change the timeline, this is due to poor timeline planning at the start of the project.
Diverse Team
5 We are all different colours meaning we have diverse mind sets. We also come from very different backgrounds and expertise.
HR up to the Par
pass There is no specific member that lacks skill compared to any other, therefore no one is dragging the team down in efficiency and effectiveness.
The routine of distributing tasks we will continue. In a next project we must be more critical on dates when planning the timeline. This particulary process must be done more thorough and not only through one person. Through inversting more time into the time planning the timeline is more reliable and doesn’t need adjustments during the project. As the teams were defined through the project tutors we as team members could not influence this point. If a team however is not diverse enough it could try to assign different roles to the members. These roles then needed to be played like in a theatre piece during certain meetings. Air Design does not have any problem with the staffing.
Common Objective
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7.5 Lessons Learned How to build teams and work in them In the NPD project, the team members were already chosen by the lecturers. This selection happened randomly. Regarding the color scheme, our team was chosen correctly since we had green, yellow, blue and one team member with tendency to red as well. This color scheme will help us in future to select a team according to colors to fulfill a given task. Knowing about team member’s strength and weaknesses was important to give tasks according to one person’s strength. Livia is for instance good in planning. Therefore, she created a project plan to keep track of our tasks. Thereby, it is important that one team member is also aware of his/ her own abilities. Analyzing our strengths will help us for future projects. Susann was for instance identified as the analytical kind of person to ensure a high quality level. Building trust within the team by being reliable, giving constructive feedback and valuing one’s effort helps to create a strong cohesiveness. The more our team learned about each other, the more it valued each team member. We will keep this mindset for our next group work since results turn out higher when group bounds are stronger. Another important aspect to work with a team effectively is by getting to know each others values. These values must be compatible with the values defined in a corporate culture. Otherwise, conflicts will arise. Our core values – not being afraid to make mistakes, using team members as a sounding board, working together to overcome challenges, acknowledgement of individual’s effort, helping each other - does not interfere with our personal values. The more similar the corporate values are to the individual values the greater the commitment of the team member to the group will be. In future, we will find out about individual values first before defining our team values since we did it this time the other way around. Moreover, a team works well when it is defined what actions will be continued, stopped and started beforehand. We for instance said that we will stop to criticize ideas within feedback sessions. This helped us to build trust to say what is on one’s mind. In future, we also promised ourselves not to destroy the brainstorming flow since each idea can lead to an even better idea.
Strategies to deal with conflicts A corporate culture which is based on common values helps to prevent conflicts. By developing a team charter in the beginning, expectations and values were well defined before-hand to limit to potential of conflicts. Ground rules - like “no delay within timeline” - draws attention to speed up the process. In future projects, we will continue to start with a team charter first to have everything in a document which everyone can read whenever needed. Defined roles helped us to split ownerships. By writing these down, everyone felt clear about their tasks. This also limited the potential of conflicts. In future, we will include not only the roles but also the role definition in the team charter. A common goal is also important to prevent disputes. We defined an external goal and an internal one. The external goal is based on our imaginative design agency that we had to create and the internal goal is to create a result which we can be proud of. This goal is on one hand based on wanting to create a quality work to insert into our portfolio and on the other hand to at least achieve a the grade C for our NPD project. Thereby, it was very important to put each individual’s goals into consideration since the group goals have to be compatible with each team member’s goal to avoid conflict. In future, we will write goal statements in the beginning as well so that everyone knows what to strive for. Another impotency to prevent clashes is to know about weaknesses of each team member in order to deal with these correctly. We know that Susan is sometimes too much stuck into detail so that we will let someone else finish her task if she feels stuck. Knowing these weaknesses and strengths is also important for future task division in new projects.
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How to asses teams & individuals Defined expectations help to evaluate the work of individuals and as a group. By defining the timeline, each team member knows when he/she is expected to finish a task. In future, we will continue to state these expectations in the team charter. A constructive feedback helps to clarify goals, relationships, develop awareness, solve interactions and improve learnings. We started to give feedback continuously and became especially aware of the feedback rules. We improved our feedbacks by using active instead of passive pronouns, starting with “I think�. We will continuously improve our feedback culture within the team as well as in other teams by practicing giving feed back in weekly meetings. How different people are motivated differently (extrinsic = grades, portfolio to get a good job and intrinsic) We examined our extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Thereby, we found out that Susann cares more about grades than Fabian. A common goal for a grade had to be defined. We also found out that Fabian and Susann are highly goal-oriented and that you can motivate both by defining clear goals for each meeting and for each task. To know about each individual motivation helps to keep the motivation level high. In future, we can prevent a decrease of motivation by choosing the right trigger. What does it mean to lead and which strategies you can use? We learned that formal and personal power are diverse and should not be confused with leadership. One person or several person can take on leadership within a group. Since we are such small team, we decided to define more rules in order to make everyone accountable for leadership. For instance, everyone is responsible to overview the project. For future projects, we will adapt this strategy according to the size of the group.
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7.6 Reflection In order to define what makes teamwork ideal, we relied on personal experiences. As the three memebers of our team all have different characters - and therefor colors we had to find characteristics all could agree on. This was possible due to practical experience. On one hand, we discussed benchmark teamwork and on the other hand very bad examples. As the project we are working on is not finished yet, we will have to re-evaluate our performance in January. To do it already once in between helps us to recognize spots for improve. After having worked in many different teams during the first year of DMI, we had the chance to examine carefully what can and has to happen when working in a team. Through applying the different techniques to our NPD team, we could acquire experience which can now be transformed to any other teamwork. As all members look at things at different angles, we all found out much more than if we would go through topics like this only in theory.
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Appendix Contribution of the Team Members Hereby, we confirm that the entire content of the document has been developed as a group. We used flipcharts, post-its, motivational card games, keyword cards and pinboards to translate the theoretical content of the lesson into hands-on experiences. Thereby, we gathered the findings on dropbox and documented the insights. After indepth discussion about the content, we split the work by phrasing the single tasks individually. In the end, the whole document was read as a group to check the content again as well as the spelling. Livia was entirely responsible for the layout, as well as for printing the booklet. The work division of the final phrasing is as follows: Fabian: Lesson: What is leadership Stating own benefit for group Stating individual motivation Stating own’s strengths and weaknesses Defining general color characteristics Explanation leadership What is an ideal team Evaluate own team Reflection: Identifying members’ motivations, group issues and feedbacks Reflection: Define leadership, responsibilities Susann: Lesson: What’s your motivation Stating own benefit for group Stating individual motivation Stating own’s strengths and weaknesses Combination of colors Learnings team experiences that is relevant for working in teams in future Appendix Reflection: Description of group members’ strengths, weaknesses and values Reflection: Identifying group goals, roles, expectations and task process 21
Livia: Introduction: What will we explain and why Lesson: Forming and structuring your group Stating own benefit for group Stating individual motivation Stating own’s strengths and weaknesses Improving own’s team effectiveness Differentiation of more and less effective teams Reflection: Defining a group mission statement and group values Reflection: Lessons learned and Evaluation Layout: Ideation and Creation