Teamwork Guide for CMPS115: Software Engineering

What is a team?

A team is a small group of people with complimentary skills who are committed to a common purpose and goals and approach for which they hold themselves and each other accountable. Let's explore each part of this definition to fully understand it.

Small Group Size

Teams usually work best with a small group of people. Smaller numbers make team administrative tasks easier, such as deciding where and when to meet. Meetings are generally shorter when fewer people need to speak. Small size also makes it easier to develop a common purpose with mutual goals and mutual accountability, which is so important for good teamwork. In addition, a small group of people avoids the "herd" mentality of large groups. In a large group people tend to go along with popular opinion rather than thinking for themselves. In general, the larger the group of people, the harder it is for the group to work well together.

Complimentary Skills

Complimentary skills are also important for a team. Necessary skills include: technical, problem-solving, decision-making and interpersonal skills. Technical skills are needed to provide the expertise to meet the goals of the team. The other skills are necessary for the team to work effectively together.

Commitment

High performance teams must make a strong commitment to a common purpose and goals. A common, meaningful purpose sets the tone and aspirations of the team. The team's purpose must then be translated into specific, measurable goals, often called milestones. The milestones help to focus the team and make it more productive. Meeting milestones also gives the team small victories that are crucial to its commitment and morale. This combination of purpose and goals is important for the success of the team.

Common Approach

The members of a real team must also make a commitment to a common approach. What are the standards of behavior? How will the team go about its tasks? Who will perform which task? How will schedules be assigned and how are decisions made? These are the nuts-and-bolts issues that need to be agreed upon by all members of the team.

Accountability

Teams are commonplace in industry today. Most companies organize their employees by function, such as engineering, finance and marketing. Even within a function such as engineering, people are usually organized into smaller groups by their specialties. Companies then use teams when people from different groups are needed to meet a goal, such as developing a new product. Some of the reasons for organizing a group of people as a team, instead of a committee or other group structure, are shown below.

Enhanced Cooperation and Coordination

With tasks that need cooperation and coordination, teams can perform better than individuals or functional groups. Cross-functional teams reduce the number of hand-offs and the amount of coordination needed between the functions: because more of the expertise to do the job belongs to the team, there is less need to pass work on to another group. This improved coordination can provide strategic advantages to companies such as reduced time to market.

Synergy

Teamwork is more than getting along or being helpful. In a real team the members work toward a common goal. By working together, team members help each other to accomplish tasks. A team working together usually gets more results in less time than other types of organizations.

Organizational Flexibility

An organization can be more flexible by using teams. Management can put a team together to accomplish a specific task and then disbanded it. Or, a team can be kept together more or less permanently to address an ongoing need such as running an operation or developing a series of new products.

Organizational Parity

One of the advantages of cross-functional teams is that they serve as a way to prevent any one group from having higher status than another has. In a hierarchically managed organization, there is a tendency for one group to have more status than other groups. The groups with lower status often have their ideas and suggestions discounted. This tends to limit the number of creative ideas and problem-solving options to those produced by the high-status group. In contrast, teams allow each member to have an equal say in decisions and discussions. By considering all ideas and proposals equally, teams can produce more creative and optimum results.

Job Satisfaction

Defining Roles and Responsibilities

A role is a function or part performed for a position in an organization. Roles are present whether we are aware of them or not, and it is better to choose and assign the roles on a team rather than just let them happen. Each role has a set of responsibilities associated with the role. Responsibility means being answerable for performing the duties and tasks.

The roles of team members, with the associated responsibilities for those roles, are dependent upon the project and the expertise of the team member. Teams often have members from different organizations and the team member's role is to contribute that organization's expertise to the project.

For this course, define the roles of each team member according to their interests and specialties. For instance, one person may be responsible for the graphical-user interface, another for a database, another for a group of algorithms, and so forth.

As you can see, the division of the roles depends on the project, the skills of each team member, and an understanding of how to fairly divide the work of developing the product. Thus it is a good idea to discuss the roles of each team member after selecting the product and while deciding on the major sub-sections of the design. Then each team member will have the responsibility for the design and implementation of a sub-section of the product.

Other Team Member Responsibilities

There are some responsibilities that are common to all team members. These responsibilities exist because the team needs to work together to accomplish its goals. These responsibilities are based on the need for cooperation. As a memory aid, I have organized the responsibilities for good cooperation under the headings of follow through, assertiveness, communication, timeliness and spirit. Together the first letters of these headings spell FACTS, F-A-C-T-S. I call them the FACTS of teamwork. Team members have a responsibility to enhance cooperation on their team using these FACTS.

Follow through

When team members cooperate, they follow through on commitments. With this follow-through, the member shows a keen awareness that as part of a team, everything they do affects someone else. They also know that if they forget to do something, they become a weak link; an obstacle in the work process. Lack of follow-through impedes the performance of others and reduces trust. It is hard to trust people who do not do what they say they will do.

Other team members may interpret lack of follow-through as a lack of respect for others. This seems obvious since it is tiresome to "remind" adult colleagues that something is due, and annoying to sit through meetings where people offer excuses about why things did not get done. When individuals don't do what they say, it is demoralizing and leads to a rather contagious lack of effort. On the other hand, when team members keep commitments, they inspire their colleagues to do the same.

Assertiveness

A team member has a responsibility to speak frankly and openly when there is a difference of opinion. A team is more likely to succeed when members are willing to risk conflict with other team members and stand their ground when required. This helps the team to avoid making bad decisions and then implementing them because everyone went along just to be part of the team.

At the same time, a team member must not become so dedicated to their position that they ignore the team's purpose and goals. Members should show flexibility, an ability to meet halfway, and a willingness to work for the common good. Team members should negotiate their differences so that both parties can win. In highly cooperative teams, there are few turf wars, little competitiveness, and an ability to forgive and forget.

Communication

For a team to reach its full potential, team members must be willing to say what they think, ask for help, share new or unpopular ideas, give the status of their activities, and risk admitting mistakes. This can only happen in a setting where team members show concern for one another, trust one another, and look for answers together. When communication is friendly, open and positive, teams are more productive and team members feel more satisfied.

Friendly interaction happens when people know each other, respect each other, and show warmth toward one another. Such behaviors provide an atmosphere for risk taking and cooperation. When team members ask each other about their lives outside of work, share jokes, and on the whole make each other feel welcome, they are creating conditions for group bonding.

Open, honest communication is key to a team's success. Nothing reduces trust faster than when members say one thing within the group and something else outside of the group. When people are confident enough to say what they need to say directly to the right people, and to refrain from talking behind each other's back, they enhance trust.

Timeliness

Members share important information promptly and succinctly. People ask each other for comments on their plans and ideas often, but not so often that it blocks the workflow. Team members tend to cluster their questions and comments so that they share them all at once instead of repeatedly interrupting each other's workday.

People know each other's calendars and schedule important group activities so that everyone can attend. You might also hear people thanking each other for their time and asking, "Is this a good time?" It is hard not to cooperate with those who respect your time.

Spirit

Being on a team is a bit like being part of a family. You can't have your way all of the time. To make the team perform, all members must have a tolerant spirit.

When teamwork is high in a group, you can sense the positive attitude. Members value individual differences, speak kindly about individual talents, offer compliments on individual contributions -- but also form a team identity. Members develop mutual trust, talk openly, and willingly welcome new members as needed.

When there is good team spirit, members make decisions by consensus, not by voting. Voting divides a team into winners and losers, whereas consensus requires each team member to cooperate. Team members must listen to each point of view, modify his or her own stand to fit the will of the group, and support the decision that seems best for the team.

When team spirit is high, parties are frequent and often spontaneous. Members may recognize special occasions such as birthdays or weddings, individual successes such as solving a vexing problem, or team successes such as reaching a project milestone. Recognition on such occasions may be as informal as someone bringing snacks or pizza to meetings, or as formal as presenting framed certificates. The congratulations are always sincere, however, and the message is very clear: "We celebrate each other's milestones and successes because we are all on the same team. A win for one is a win for all." Such camaraderie is a good sign that teamwork within the group is high.

The Team Leader

Why does a team need a leader? Someone needs to look at the big picture: the project as a whole. This allows the other team members to focus on their parts of the project knowing that someone is thinking about how everything fits together.

For a team to work efficiently, it needs a standard way of operating. By defining processes, team members know how to accomplish team tasks and they spend more time working on problems that contribute to the goal of producing the team's product. Some of the processes that a team needs to agree upon are as follows:

Standards of behavior: Set some clear rules for behavior. These rules should promote focus, openness, trust and commitment. Following these rules can prevent conflicts from other members from getting in the way of team tasks. They can also help people keep focused on the real work of the team, which is finding solutions to problems.

Team communication: How will you keep each other informed of progress? When does the team need to meet and when are other communication methods, like email, appropriate? These questions and more need answering by the team.

Making decisions: What decisions can individuals make and what decisions must the team make? Will the team decide actions by voting or consensus? My recommendation is to make decisions by consensus, not by voting. Voting divides a team into winners and losers, whereas consensus requires each team member to cooperate. However, the team needs to consciously decide how they will make decisions.