An Engineer’s Perspective on Teams Nathan Delson

Teamwork Will be a Dominant Component of the Robot Project 4 Venture capitals rely more on a team than on the project proposal 4 Team Effectiveness –Teams can be much more effective than sum of individuals. –Or much less!

Team Dynamics Questions 4 What encourages team creativity? 4 How are decisions made? 4 What encourages team motivation? 4 Are disagreements good or bad? 4 Is stress good or bad?

Non-obvious Team Aspects 4 Conflict can be positive or negative 4 Engineering decisions will be based on: –Group dynamics as well as technical info. 4 Silence can be more important than verbalized views 4 Group dynamics can be subtle 4 A crisis can galvanize a team

What is the Primary Reason for an Individual's Lack of Contribution? 4 If a team member does not feel that their options or actions contribute to team effectiveness then they will not feel ownership on the project 4 Every team member should have part of the machine that is “their baby”

Are You Listening Well Enough? 4 Did everyone have a chance to voice their opinion (everyone has one)? 4 Was concept enthusiastic, or was their silent “lack of opposition”

Are You Making Yourself Heard? 4 It is your responsibility to express your views 4 If other’s do not “see” the brilliance of your idea. Try other methods of communication –Graphics –Hardware demos

Personality Differences 4 Extroverted/Introverted 4 Risk Taker/Avoid Risk 4 Cultural 4 Gender 4 Respect of other’s ability and contribution is the key to effective teamwork

Heterogeneity vs. Homogeneity 4 Homogenous teams –Get going quickly with simple tasks –Susceptible to “group think” 4 Heterogeneous teams –Take a longer time to build consensus –More effective at tasks requiring creativity 4 Types of heterogeneity

Can You Overcome the “Not- Invented-Here” Syndrome 4 Human nature and personal pride can make it difficult to embrace ideas of others –Other team members –From outside the team 4 However, the best designers take advantages of all resources 4 If you can as excited about the ideas of others, as much as your own, you will become a true team player

Team Formation 4 Random team formation, with adjustment to have a mix of majors and years. 4 Experience working with others from different backgrounds (similar to a work environment)

Stages in Group Development 4 Forming –Building trust (a lot of politeness) 4 Storming –Group takes ownership of destiny (rebellion!) 4 Norming & Performing –Achievement oriented –Utilization of outside resources

Should We Have a Leader? 4 It is the teams choice 4 Defer the decision until the second or third week of the project. A leader needs to be someone the team is comfortable in supporting.

Logistics of Effective Teamwork 4 Share phone and contacts 4 Hold regular weekly meetings –Arrive on time –Have work done in advance to show others –Divided the work, assign duty to each member that needed to be complete by the time of next meeting. 4 The goal of the project is to learn –Every team member is required to be responsible for a major hardware component of the robot, and a major web/CAD component.

Helping Team Development 4 Emphasize team objective 4 Do not undervalue need to spend time to establish relationships with team members 4 Go for small wins along with big ones 4 Encourage ownership in all members 4 Take the risk of being committed to the goal 4 Take advantage of facilitators 4 Have fun