Group collaborative essay work and file sharing

Group Reflection

Interpersonal Communication

Louise Allen is a PCO that has just been awarded a large conference project. Her team will consist of six individuals and she will be operating with a tight six-month lead time to achieve many objectives including finding a sponsorship contract. Louise will need to be an effective team leader in order to motivate the team to meet all of their shared goals and desired group outcomes. The first step in this process will be to define the group's objectives in real terms. This will provide a vision for the project that can be shared amongst the members. The planning will need to be proactive and informative so that it can serve as the basis for collaboration and cooperation amongst the team.

Not only will the objectives need to be clarified, but the expectations for how the team will work together should also be shared. This includes ethical interaction and conflict resolution as some of the most critical factors in this instance. With a six-month lead time as a constraint, it is likely that the team will have to work under a significant amount of pressure in meeting their shared objectives. Therefore it is likely that the team will be more prone to conflicts than other projects with more lenient deadlines. Louise will need to show leadership through conflict resolution to be able to keep the project on track. When disagreements do occur, if Louise can effectively manage the disagreements and bring the small team back to consensus then there will be a much higher probability that the conference will be a success.

Upon reflection of our group's project team and out performance, I believe that the group worked together well in the pursuit of our shared goals; however there is also room for improvement. The group was able to meet all of its shared goals in an effective manner and was empathic in its interactions for the most part. All of the group members actively participated in the project in one way or another and treated each other in an ethical manner.

One area in which the group could have improved its performance would be the appropriate use of time. There were several occasions in which debates occurred that focused on issues that were not entirely critical to the group's overall goals. While these disagreements were valid, devoting so much time to them took time away from other activities that were even more important. As a result, so of the more important decisions that needed to be made lacked the time needed for discussion in order to make sure the team was on the same page.

It can be very frustrating when the group gets off track. On one hand, there is the impulse to be an active participant in the debate. When two people disagree on any particular issue it is easy to pick a side and try to develop your own opinion. However, on the other hand, it is easy to recognize that the group is off tract and the debate is lingering on for longer than it should. There were many times I was irritated that the group would not just move on.

Getting the group to move past disagreements which seem to linger on can be a challenging task. Even when most people in the group began to realize that arguing was not using our time effectively; nobody seemed to be able to stop. A few times a group member proposed that we should move on but the member's disagreement still went on instead. However, the group was also newly formed and had not had the opportunity to work with each other very long.