Teamwork in a Business Context Is Based

¶ … teamwork in a business context is based upon communication and cooperation. These principles also apply to an educational environment. It is critical that all members of the team make a consistent and determined effort to participate. Consistency is very important. Students in an online environment must communicate regularly, in both a synchronous and asynchronous format. Email, chat rooms, and message boards all enable team members to keep in constant contact. Communication also facilitates adhering to deadlines for long and short-term goals, another critical component of teamwork. All teams must have a sense of mission and purpose. Communication enables the team to generate rules for interactions that must be obeyed, to ensure that members are treated with respect, that members 'pull their weight' and do not have their areas of authority trampled on, and basic rules of civic discourse are obeyed.

One problem with using synchronous communication, however, is that team members may not be awake and/or online at the same time. Email and message boards enable team members to respond to one another, directly, even if they do not speak in 'real time.' The use of other forms of technology, such as links, online videos (which can be collectively discussed), audio clips, and PowerPoint presentation inject a more exciting visual and audio component to the learning experience, while still enabling all team members to respond when it is convenient for them.

The online environment also has many resources to improve the group's sense of self-consciousness about its processes and ways of interacting. Group members can take online personality tests to determine what 'type' they may be, and how that may affect their ability to interact with other team members of different 'types.' Understanding how you communicate and why other group members may communicate differently can help prevent misunderstandings. In the absence of body language and voice tone, understanding one's communication style in prose as well as face-to-face is essential.

Part 2

I participated in an online team for a class, which was supposed to develop a group research paper and PowerPoint presentation with visual aids. Unfortunately, the experience was not particularly happy. After the first few emails, many members of the group stopped participating. A few members took control and began allocating work to each group member. But there was no timetable for posting our contributions throughout the semester, and everyone worked relatively autonomously. At the end of the project, as the due date for the presentation approached, it was clear that some people had worked very had while others had hardly done any work at all. The presentation and the paper were very 'piecemeal,' and seemed as if it had been cut and pasted together).