Blog Week 9 - Team Players?
Preamble.
Teams are an important part of working in this modern day and age and remote teams are becoming more and more common in many sectors of work. I left a great team at my previous job but we we not that much more than the competent dregs of the IT department who sat in the same room. Quite often our work had no crossover with each other and if a question was fielded to any one of us that was outside that person's scope of work it would get redirected to the correct person or team. I see now while we were a team in name we weren't a team at all in practice. We did have a great boss and leader though, he would task us with things that fit our skill sets and sometimes with others to challenge us, he focused on development in a very transformation type style; he encourage us to deepen and widen our skill sets in directions that were interesting and rewarding.
In the Beginning.
Our team came together with a very juddering start. The process by which one can form an online team with the Stream forums is very painful one but after a few dissolving attempts to create/join a team a group of five of us got together and started communicating. Sadly within a few days we were down to four members with another person exiting after a few months, leaving the remaining three. We communicated well via Facebook and Messenger and tried to organise ourselves as best as possible.
Who captains the ship?
After a while it seemed the Sam in our team had a great overall understanding of what was required due to the fact she would quiz us on where we were up to for various tasks. I set up a poll on our private Facebook group to elect a leader/head editor and voted for Sam, and it seemed Zinettie also felt the same. Both Sam and Zinettie have been great communicators during the survey and report writing process with both of them at different times prompting for tasks to be completed or worked on further. I feel the team has been somewhat of a Laissez-faire type with each of us at times taking the reins when needed but I feel like there was no real leadership as it were in terms of driving the team. The Laissez-faire style team requires both talent and motivation by all members and sadly I was not motivated enough. I see now I work better when given select tasks to complete rather than dissecting a larger job by myself.
Who does what?
I will be the first to put my hand up when it comes to admitting they're not the most natural reader or writer, my dyslexia plays somewhat of a role in that but I won't let it be an excuse not to try to do better. I find myself better with more abstract things, like sets of data to interpret for example, and with this survey I was able to put some of that to use by setting up our results spreadsheet to do various counts and cross-conditions to help get an idea of the data. I guess I should've spent a lot more time actually writing the report component of the assignment sooner and earlier than I did, which I left to the last minute with disastrous results. Both Sam and Zinettie worked on their assigned components really well, Zinettie writing the recommendations and conclusion section and Sam writing up her side of the discussion.
When things don't get done.
In the final days of the report delivery I was all setup with my basic ideas to write my discussion and contribute back to the team. I'm not going to make any excuses, I wasn't prepared and I dropped the ball which let my other two team members down. The big takeaway from this for me is that I need to start work on things early and keep at them early, no longer can I rely on punching work out in the last minute as sometimes that last minute gets whipped out from underneath you. I now want to attempt to organise myself better and to make a solid start on things as early as possible.
In summary...
To state the bleeding obvious: team work is very important when working with others, and by that I mean you must follow through on what you're team has trusted you to do. That's the point of a team, to finish a task faster and better than you would on your own but this does require everyone to fulfill the role they're expected to. Good leadership is a must but in the case of our team where we attempted a Laissez-faire approach you must ensure everybody is up to the play otherwise the tower of work come crashing down. As someone who has for the most part been able to do everything somewhat by themselves, in work and in study, I found the team tasks somewhat daunting due to the responsibility placed in me for the whole team to succeed. I feel terrible for letting them down. Lesson learned.
Teams are an important part of working in this modern day and age and remote teams are becoming more and more common in many sectors of work. I left a great team at my previous job but we we not that much more than the competent dregs of the IT department who sat in the same room. Quite often our work had no crossover with each other and if a question was fielded to any one of us that was outside that person's scope of work it would get redirected to the correct person or team. I see now while we were a team in name we weren't a team at all in practice. We did have a great boss and leader though, he would task us with things that fit our skill sets and sometimes with others to challenge us, he focused on development in a very transformation type style; he encourage us to deepen and widen our skill sets in directions that were interesting and rewarding.
In the Beginning.
Our team came together with a very juddering start. The process by which one can form an online team with the Stream forums is very painful one but after a few dissolving attempts to create/join a team a group of five of us got together and started communicating. Sadly within a few days we were down to four members with another person exiting after a few months, leaving the remaining three. We communicated well via Facebook and Messenger and tried to organise ourselves as best as possible.
Who captains the ship?
After a while it seemed the Sam in our team had a great overall understanding of what was required due to the fact she would quiz us on where we were up to for various tasks. I set up a poll on our private Facebook group to elect a leader/head editor and voted for Sam, and it seemed Zinettie also felt the same. Both Sam and Zinettie have been great communicators during the survey and report writing process with both of them at different times prompting for tasks to be completed or worked on further. I feel the team has been somewhat of a Laissez-faire type with each of us at times taking the reins when needed but I feel like there was no real leadership as it were in terms of driving the team. The Laissez-faire style team requires both talent and motivation by all members and sadly I was not motivated enough. I see now I work better when given select tasks to complete rather than dissecting a larger job by myself.
Who does what?
I will be the first to put my hand up when it comes to admitting they're not the most natural reader or writer, my dyslexia plays somewhat of a role in that but I won't let it be an excuse not to try to do better. I find myself better with more abstract things, like sets of data to interpret for example, and with this survey I was able to put some of that to use by setting up our results spreadsheet to do various counts and cross-conditions to help get an idea of the data. I guess I should've spent a lot more time actually writing the report component of the assignment sooner and earlier than I did, which I left to the last minute with disastrous results. Both Sam and Zinettie worked on their assigned components really well, Zinettie writing the recommendations and conclusion section and Sam writing up her side of the discussion.
When things don't get done.
In the final days of the report delivery I was all setup with my basic ideas to write my discussion and contribute back to the team. I'm not going to make any excuses, I wasn't prepared and I dropped the ball which let my other two team members down. The big takeaway from this for me is that I need to start work on things early and keep at them early, no longer can I rely on punching work out in the last minute as sometimes that last minute gets whipped out from underneath you. I now want to attempt to organise myself better and to make a solid start on things as early as possible.
In summary...
To state the bleeding obvious: team work is very important when working with others, and by that I mean you must follow through on what you're team has trusted you to do. That's the point of a team, to finish a task faster and better than you would on your own but this does require everyone to fulfill the role they're expected to. Good leadership is a must but in the case of our team where we attempted a Laissez-faire approach you must ensure everybody is up to the play otherwise the tower of work come crashing down. As someone who has for the most part been able to do everything somewhat by themselves, in work and in study, I found the team tasks somewhat daunting due to the responsibility placed in me for the whole team to succeed. I feel terrible for letting them down. Lesson learned.
Hey Evan,
ReplyDeleteI also have dyslexia !! It is so bad that my partner reads everything I write for an academic purpose and helps me out. I am blessed to have him in my life, as before I was too scared to ask for help professionally, which resulted in some failed papers. If it wasn't for his generosity and care, I would still be failing papers, not because of my lack of effort, but because of my writing and reading disability. He has helped bring out my full potential, which I am forever great-full for.