Essay on Team Project Contract

Introduction

This paper will outline a team project contract that will describe how tasks will be divided among team members, discuss how team members will make decisions about team activities, create a process for dispute resolution, and outline a team communication process that facilitates collaboration.

Division of tasks among team members

Foremost, tasks should be distributed as evenly as possible among the three members of the group, to prevent burnout or the overwhelming of any individual member from the research required for the course. This can be achieved through the weekly assignment of specific report sections to be completed, with each group member to be held responsible for their specific portions of the report. The division of tasks should be conducted at the beginning of each week, no later than Tuesday evenings at an appropriate time to be determined by the group.

Decision-making process for team activities

Decision-making should be conducted on the discussion board, with the use of text messaging as a contingency option. Furthermore, schedule conflicts should be made known through the Ashford Instructure discussion board, such that the other members of the team would be aware of periods when specific team members would be uncontactable. For example, one of the team members noted that she would be teleworking from the first to third week, which would allow for greater schedule flexibility, while the fourth week would be taken up by a major career test.

In line with research on team competency management, each member of the team should consider the strengths and weaknesses of other team members, and work collaboratively to leverage the strengths of each team member in collaborating on assignments. For example, one member may be stronger at financial plan analysis and should lead such discussions, while another member may have stronger business acumen and expertise which should be deployed accordingly in the relevant assignments.

In terms of values, it is also important for all team members to make decisions collaboratively, with respect and empathy for the viewpoints of all members of the team.

Dispute resolution process for team members

Disputes should be resolved in a group setting, with a transparent, empathetic and open conversation on the Ashford Instructure discussion board or through text message. Alternatively, as online messaging and discussion platforms are prone to misunderstanding, a phone call or teleconference may be helpful for an empathetic discussion. Finally, the group leader should be called upon to mediate any team conflicts that arise. The involvement of the instructor for dispute resolution should be a last resort.

The team members should also explore weekly scheduled check-in sessions to allow the team members to support each other, particularly in the event that the week’s workload may be overwhelming, or if the assignment demands are unclear. As demonstrated by Driskell et al (2018), this would contribute to greater team effectiveness and satisfaction (Driskell et al, 2018). This would allow all team members to have a clear sense on their grasp of the relevant assignment, and allow for sufficient lead time to complete the discussion boards.

Team communication process to facilitate collaboration

The team will use the Ashford Instructure discussion board for team collaboration, to decide on the structure and approach for the paper each week, and discuss the relevant information and evidence to be included in weekly group assignments. As discussed by Godin et al (2017), in the use of virtual collaboration tools, it is also important for all team members to accept and actively use the collaboration technology chosen by the team (Godin et al, 2017).

Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, several virtual team communication platforms, such as Google Drive, Google Docs, Airtable and Trello have grown in popularity to enable virtual collaboration and teamwork. The team has decided to use Google Docs as a collaborative word processor to capture the team’s assessment and opinions in real time, and to comment and share views on the assignment without deleting or overwriting the points of the original writer. At the end of each week, a chief writer will be assigned on a weekly basis to format the entire assignment and ensure a smooth narrative flow, prior to submission.

Conclusion

The above contract outlines a clear and effective task division, decision-making, dispute resolution and team communication process to establish a collaborative and effective approach for group A2 to work well together for the BUS368 course. Teams should continue to adopt such contracting and collaboration approaches to ensure that they perform effectively in a group context.

References

Driskell, J. E., Salas, E., & Driskell, T. (2018). Foundations of teamwork and collaboration. American Psychologist, 73(4), 334. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000241

Gibbons, G., Hisrich, R. D., & DaSilva, C. M. (2014). Entrepreneurial finance: A global perspective. Sage Publications.

Godin, J., Leader, L., Gibson, N., Marshall, B., Poddar, A., & Cardon, P. W. (2017). Virtual teamwork training: factors influencing the acceptance of collaboration technology. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 10(1), 5-23. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJICT.2017.081003

Xiao, Y., Parker, S. H., & Manser, T. (2013). Teamwork and collaboration. Reviews of human factors and ergonomics, 8(1), 55-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557234X13495181