1. M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

2. M253 Team working in distributed environments
Introduction
We will discuss
Producing a team response
Risk and contingency planning
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

3. Producing a team response
is an agreed position on an issue or question that the team has been asked to address or research.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

4. Producing a team response …continued
There are two major stages to producing a team response.
First, the team has to reach agreement on the issue, through discussion in electronic forums or face-to-face meetings.
Second, the team has to document this team response, usually in the form of a report.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

5. Producing a team response …continued
The steps involved in producing a team response document:
discussion in order to generate ideas and ways of approaching the task
Armed with this set of ideas and possibilities, team members may have gone away and individually researched these ideas in order to identify the most promising approach
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

6. Producing a team response …continued
discuss the outcomes of your research in order to agree upon your team’s position, and hence what you will record in your team’s agreed response document.
your team needs to draft an outline for the document and decide who is going to write which sections of the document.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

7. Producing a team response …continued
Writing the document comes next, followed by cycles of editing and reviewing, until a final, agreed draft of the document emerges
The agreed response document has now been completed by the team.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

8. Producing a team response …continued
Collaborating writing depends on a number of factors:
The skills of different team members: While some people have good writing skills, others may have skills in proofreading or graphic design. It is a good idea to make the most of the skills that team members possess in order to expedite production of the response document.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

9. Producing a team response …continued
The size of the response document: Short documents are usually written by one person and reviewed by the rest of the team. In contrast, long documents can often be written faster if different people write different sections of the document. While it does take time to compile a document if different sections are written by different people, there are advantages to be obtained through sharing the task of writing a response document.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

10. Producing a team response …continued
The independence of different parts of the document: If discrete sections can be identified then these could be written by different people. Alternatively, if there is a lack of independence to different sections of the response document then it is possible for the draft to contain overlaps or contradictory statements that must be resolved. Resolution of these issues is best carried out by one person who can ensure that the report is coherent, consistent and reads with one voice.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

11. Producing a team response …continued
you should try to standardize on the same set of software programs, ensuring that everyone in the team can open, edit and save documents created in that format, in order to avoid the problem of incompatibility between different word processors.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

12. Producing a team response …continued
In the centralized approach to document management, one person maintains a master version of the document against which everyone else suggests changes. This person is in overall editorial control of the document, in that they make all the requested changes, and they have to resolve any conflicts in the suggestions for changes that have been requested by other members of the team.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

13. Producing a team response …continued
One disadvantage of the centralized approach
is that team members are unaware of changes that other team members have suggested until a new version of the document is issued for discussion.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

14. Producing a team response …continued
Most word processors have a facility to automatically record changes that are made to a document while you are editing it. This facility (called Track Changes in Microsoft Word, or its equivalent in other word processors)
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

15. Producing a team response …continued
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

16. Producing a team response …continued
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

17. Producing a team response …continued
Who is going to coordinate the production of the team response?
Who is going to write which parts of the team response?
What is the common software environment that you are going to use for document preparation and production?
How is the final version of the response document going to be approved by the team?
Who is going to proofread and add the final polish to the document?
The keys to collaboratively writing an agreed response document are coordination, and choosing someone who has the organizational and writing skills to produce a report on time, according to the specification that you have been given.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

18. Risk and contingency planning
1- risk identification: the process of finding out what can go wrong
2- risk analysis: once risks have been identified they need to be analyzed in terms of their likely impact on performance, cost, schedule and quality, and in terms of the probability of the risk occurring.
3- risk management: taking steps to prevent failures or limit damage.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

19. Risk and contingency planning…continued
How to find risks: risk identification
First knowing what the desired or correct outcome of the activity or project is by developing a work breakdown structure (a decomposition of a complex activity into a series of much simpler steps).
Second, Write risk checklists (Read Example 1)
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

20. Risk and contingency planning…continued
Exercise 1
Suppose you are going abroad for a key business meeting. You plan to fly, and your company has obtained your tickets and booked accommodation. Spend no more than five minutes and list some items that are key to getting to the meeting, and some associated risks.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

21. Risk and contingency planning…continued
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

22. Risk and contingency planning…continued
Analyzing risks: how likely? how bad?
Murphy’s Law tells us that everything that can go wrong will.
Benjamin Franklin’s dictum that ‘nothing in life is certain except death and taxes’.
(read Example 2)
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

23. Risk and contingency planning…continued
Exercise2:
Choose two or three risks from the list you produced as part of Exercise 1. Now rank these for their impact and probability. You don’t need to be any more accurate than the estimations shown in Table 4 in the discussion to this exercise.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

24. Risk and contingency planning…continued
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

25. Risk and contingency planning…continued
It is important to tackle risks in a particular order:
1) high-impact, high probability
2) high impact, low probability
3) low impact, high probability.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

26. Risk and contingency planning…continued
Managing the risks
Avoid the risk: changing a task or a design to eliminate the risk.
Reduce the risk: for example, to reduce the risk of arriving too late for my flight because of a traffic jam, I can allow plenty of extra time to travel to the airport.
Transfer the risk: essentially this is the equivalent of taking out travel insurance that pays me if I miss my flight due to, say, car breakdown or failure of public transport.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

27. Risk and contingency planning…continued
Accept the risk: I do nod ignore the risk, but remember to review the situation from time to time to determine whether the risk (a) has an increased probability of occurring, and (b) whether the impact it would have has changed.
Make contingency plans: come up with a ‘Plan B’ before a risk occurs so that, if it does, “Plan B” can be put into action immediately. In my example, ‘Plan B’ for, say, public transport failing me may be ‘take a mobile phone and be prepared to call, and pay, for a taxi to complete my journey.
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019

28. Summary Read The resource sheets carefully.
Producing a team response
-is an agreed position on an issue or question that the team has been asked to address or research.
Risk and contingency planning
-the process of finding out what can go wrong
Read The resource sheets carefully.
Good luck and Have fun
M253 Team working in distributed environments
23 February 2019