Friday, January 13, 2012

2013 TKR: TEAM: Group projects: Task oriented meetings: best practices

  • Group projects: 
  • Task-oriented group projects 
  • Best practices for virtual worlds
  • Overview

When people work together on a task, they are likely to hold meetings.  If meetings don't follow good practices, you hear:

  • The meetings are just a waste of time.
  • They just talk, go in circles, get nowhere.
  • Lots of good ideas get ignored.
These comments are symptoms of problems in group functioning.
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Oh, yes.  I jumped to some assumptions:
  • There is a project that the people at the meeting are collaborating on.
  • The meeting is held to advance the project in some way.
 We are not in unknown territory here
Effective functioning in task-oriented groups: Overview 
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A few examples of training
Facilitator
facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitator
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So a person can work--get paid--as a group facilitator.  Or people who will be working in groups can learn to do the things facilitators do.   
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Or people can come together in groups without anybody doing the facilitation work.  That's how you get the results I mentioned at the top here.
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What do facilitators do?
  • Use/teach  task management tools such as agenda, prioritization, and action items.
  • Organize the activity into subtasks 
  • Provide group maintenance roles that are needed but omitted
  • Act to keep the group on its current task
Common sub-tasks in group-managed projects
  • Idea generation, brainstorming.
  • Goal selection, decison-making.
  • Planning, allocation and monitoring of sub-tasks.
  • Troubleshooting, problem-solving.
What does the leader do?
  • Small groups typically work best with distributed leadership
  • There are multiple leadership roles.
  • Task roles are done by people capable of the current task.
  • Maintenance roles are done by the facilitator or others.
  • Leadership roles are filled by several people in the same discussion
  • Leadership shifts to the person(s) most capable of the current task.
  • When the task shifts, the leadership will probably shift.
  • Leader comments
The above is an overview of skills people need if they are to contribute effectively to task-oriented groups.  
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1 comment:

  1. Its been pretty good on my part to look out for the task management in a specific manner for a better end result. How ever with the speed and strategy, the tool that I have been using for the sake of task tracking and management is some what more advanced and magnificent in terms of the task tracking and management. I am a dedicated user of the cloud based Replicon's task management tools - http://www.replicon.com/olp/task-management-software.aspx which works in a hassle free manner for the perfect and desired end result. Where as these tips are awesome and perfect for the task management to be done up in a precised manner. I will surely try to implement these in the tool if possible.

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