Structure 1. The team’s process so far October November December 2. Observations Sharing knowledge Project management Geographical distance 3. Personal learnings and feedback

Improving patients’ head-neck positioning for radiotherapy precision and user experience

My dataset from 3 months Slack’s channels “general”, “weeklyupdate” Minutes of meetings in Google Drive 4 facilitated sessions 6 team meetings attended 1 pool party Messaging and talking to team members

The team’s process so far November October December

October: intensive working and task division PD6 and the aussies and the sponsor here, went back home and divided tasks Me: debrief session and divg-convg in PD6

November: division to subteams, hiatus Me: planning session to set deliverables for the project Subteams for areas of solutions Final meeting: not many results to show from November

December: critical feedback, prototyping PDP structure: CPM with staff and sponsor Vio: feedback session  Prototyping

The project’s progressing speed has varied Something happened, but it was difficult to reason how it had brought the project forward (project plan, team meetings) What caused this? October November December

Observations

Boundaries hinder the sharing of knowledge Subteams Remotes Manager 4 major stakeholders (not a detailed description) 4 major borders Remotes far away and with time difference Sponsor busy with all kinds of work, age difference Manager overseeing the team and conveying information Subteams sharing their progress with the team Typical situation Every boundary is two-way, and problems can usually not be blamed on one side only Sponsor

Challenges in team management may have lead to communication issues Subteams Manager Example: PM was the one to aggregate different parts of the PP  He was the only one who saw the whole thing, unless someone read it on their own from Drive Example: Subteams were asked to show something they did in weekly meetings, but sometimes no-one from a subteam was present nor was anything sent to the team digitally afterwards/before  It goes both ways!  Such things can be demotivating and cause you not to feel your work has meaning

Lack of physical presence may have highlighted existing problems Remotes Internet connection, time differences, software IDs, scheduling Result: hearing, seeing, energy level, leaving in the middle Example: meeting in Aalto at 12:00, Australia 21:00, work early in the morning + people a bit late  Gotta go sleep at 22:00 and not much was discussed Sponsor

External wake-up calls forced the team to proceed, not my facilitative interventions Checkpoint meeting with course staff and sponsor Halfway presentations External situations make the team work despite the borders I wasn’t one of these external wake-up calls!  So, did I make a difference?

Facilitator feedback & role

I was most useful early on, despite lacking experience in facilitation PD6: ideation, idea categorization, picking the most promising, allocating tasks Practical things: The whiteboard getting really really full & crowded & difficulty to arrange ideas when they weren’t written on post-its Videolearning: watching team members look at each other in confusion after giving them instructions

Questions? Subteams Remotes Manager Sponsor The team had borders that made it difficult for them to work But thanks to external pushes, they are now making progress And in the meanwhile, I learned a thing or two about observing people and providing guidance through facilitation Sponsor