CS 160: Lecture 13
Administrivia
- Please sign up for a group meeting with JFC or Miriam. E.g. today 4-5:15pm
Teams
- “A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” - K&S
- Unpacking this statement...
Teams: Small numbers
- Two problems arise when teams get too big:
- Centralization: a few people dominate, and several hardly contribute at all
- Communication: the overhead for communication goes up with the number of people
Team size
- Team sizes vary of course, but for much creative work, it seems like 4-7 is the ideal range, with 5 being about optimal.
Brooks Law
- In the “Mythical Man Month”, Fred Brooks observed that from many studies the per-programmer performance in programming teams decreases with the size of the team.
- This is often called “Brooks Law” (programming teams are less than the sum of their parts).
Communication modes
- Sproull & Kiesler studied team programming in courses at CMU and found:
- Teams that did more communication by email rather than in face-to-face meetings were more productive. Teams with only F2F meetings were less productive.
Communication modes
- Sproull and Kiesler’s work reinforces the idea that communication impacts group effectiveness.
- Email is good for routine coordination and communication.
Common Purpose
- Sense of purpose is a big part of team success.
- K&S: Set measurable performance goals
Goal setting
- Defines specific work products
- Facilitates communication and constructive conflict
- Attainable: maintain focus
- Leveling effect: focus on task rather than status
- Defines small wins as part of the larger purpose
Common purpose
- Common purpose is helped by group affinity (people liking each other), but that is not necessary.
- Common purpose can also be achieved by interdependence (group members evaluated and rewarded together)
Communication again
- Face-to-face meetings are a good way to:
- Create and foster common purpose
- Email and phone are good for
- Routine communication and decision-making
Constructive Conflict
- Sometimes, groups strive for harmony and strong consensus.
- Generally speaking, the better the group feels about a decision, the less effective that decision is. (groupthink)
- Good decision-making involves resolution of differing viewpoints - constructive conflict
Conflict and Creativity
- In fact the most effective generator of creativity in a group is an authentic dissenter:
- Someone who is credible and who genuinely disagrees with the rest of the group.
- Some groups use “devil’s advocates” for this reason. They’re not as effective.
Conflict and Creativity
- The key to constructive conflict is to focus on the task, and on individual ideas.
- Ideas and opinions must be detached from the individual.
- Ideas have to be clarified and developed before they can be criticized.
Team membership
- Technical/functional (experts)
- Problem-solving/decision-making
Interdisciplinary teams
- Communication on the programming team was a problem. For the interdisciplinary team, it is a big problem.
- Teams often depend on “gatekeepers” or facilitators with interdisciplinary skills and vocabulary to help team members understand each other. The differences are:
- Vocabulary, Meaning, Purpose
Interdisciplinary teams
- Communication on the programming team was a problem. For the interdisciplinary team, it is a big problem.
- Teams often depend on “gatekeepers” or facilitators with interdisciplinary skills and vocabulary to help team members understand each other. The differences are:
- Vocabulary, Meaning, Purpose
Building teams: Urgency
- There is a clear way to move ahead
Building teams: Select for Skill
- Manager should choose team based on skills of members, and potential skills.
- Should personality be a factor?… stay tuned.
Setting rules of behavior
- E.g. no phone calls in meetings
- one conversation at a time
Set a few immediate goals
- Make them performance-oriented
- When results occur, the team starts feeling like a team
Bring in fresh facts and ideas
- Fact: teams do not share enough information (Hinds 199x).
- Regular updates and exchanges are much more valuable than they seem.
- This builds a sense of community and common knowledge.
Spend time together
- Casual or “unstructured” interactions are very important for building shared context.
- Putting people in the same space is the best way to do that.
- Recreating this online is a bit of a challenge.
Positive Feedback
- Don’t miss an opportunity to reward or encourage legitimate effort.
- Positive reinforcement encourages more effort and performance beyond expectations.