Week 2: Team Dynamics#
Overview#
In this second studio, you will meet you team and together we will all investigate team dynamics including managing teams and concepts for effective teamwork, providing a solid framework to develop your projects throughout the semester.
We will address the following activities and exercises in studio 2.
Getting to know your team
Team values and their purpose
How to identify and ratify team values
Ratifying team values into a team contract
Exercise 1: Meet your team#
⏱️ 15 minutes - Class
Devices closed for this exercise
Your legends will announce which team each student is in. Once you meet your team, sit together at a table.
Exercise 2: TimeGuessr Team-building exercise#
⏱️20 minutes - Group
Devices required for this exercise
TimeGuessr is a game where (built on the popular GeoGuessr game) where you need to specify in what year and which location are particular photo has been taken.
We’ll play this in today’s studio
In your team, choose one person to keep their laptop open for the task. Then, do the following steps:
Go to the TimeGuessr daily challenge
Solve the five tasks, but after each one, wait on the results page for the other teams to catch up. Your legend will guide you.
Record your final score after the fifth task.
Exercise 3: Team problem solving#
⏱️20 minutes - Group
Devices can be used for this exercise
For the next task, your legend will guide you through a team problem solving exercise, which has been provided by employability team in the Faculty of Engineering, IT, and Architecture.
Work through the problems on this worksheet (requires UQ login).
Reflect on the questions in the activity.
Take a break#
⏱️ 10 minutes
Exercise 4: Identifying and Ratifying Team Values#
⏱️ 10 minutes - Class
Devices closed for this exercise
Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny. - Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)
Values underpin how we work and interact with others.
Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist, was able to use his understanding of law, culture and the human psyche lead to develop a deep mastery of shared values and leverage that knowledge to connect a nation together.
Simon Sinek is an American leadership and teams expert. In the studio, we will watch the following two short videos where Simon gives some high-level observations:
Sinek identifies two critical team values: belief (trust) and support (encourage). He also makes an important observation about making values verbs so they can become actionable. Specifically, we should focus on observable behaviour as much as possible. That way, we can easily tell whether we are adhering to our team’s values.
A value such as ‘be thoughtful’ is not helpful, because it is difficult to tell whether someone is being thoughtful (except by referring to specific observable behaviour that demonstrates it). Instead, stating, “show up on time”, “email the team if we will miss a meeting” are easy to observe, and therefore, we can say whether we are adhering to the values”.
Tips: Avoid using nouns for your team values, instead think about actionable verbs.
Dimension Team Value Builder#
⏱️ 20 minutes - Group
Devices closed for this exercise
There are two problems you will solve with this exercise:
Identifying effective values for your team
Ratifying those values into a written contract (signing or giving formal consent to a contract or agreement)
Follow these steps to complete the exercise:
Select one group member either through volunteering or vote.
This group member will draw an 6x6 grid on paper or a whiteboard (ensure there is some space on the margins to write)
As a group, start brainstorming team values and writing them on the margins.
Once every member has thought of 6-10 values (as verbs), each member gets to choose any value written in the margin and write them in a single square in the grid (can be any square). Go around the group round-robin, allowing each member to place a value in the grid until the entire grid is filled.
Now, each team member should ‘vote’ on the values. You get exactly four votes: draw a tick on the two values that are most important to you, and a cross on the two that you find least important (even if you agree with them). The rest, leave blank.
Once every team member has voted, analyse the grid and decide on six core values. (Ticks are worth 1 point, cross worth -1 point; values are ranked by number of points)
Circle core values and rank them by number (1 for highest to 6 for lowest)
Once your group has completed the task, move onto the next task.
Ratification Process#
⏱️ 15 minutes - Group
Devices required for this exercise
With team values having been identified, chosen and ranked, discuss and write up a short 1 page sample of a team contract:
The contract should outline the standards that are expected to be met by all team members.
Use the core values to serve as a foundation for your contract.
You are free to come up with rules of conduct, conflict resolution, communication and other team obligations, but these are just examples.
If you are having trouble coming up with a team contract, do some research on team contract templates and adapt them to your needs.
Team contracts serve as insurance for team conflict resolution and issues. They may never be used in a cohesive and well integrated team, but are invaluable when issues arise.
If you are struggling, you can use the core values to serve as a foundation for the document. Remember, focus on verbs / behaviours.
Outcome: Share this contract with your legend before you leave the studio.