Digital Age and Collaboration - Friends or Enemies?

Outline

1.Introduction

2.Collaboration process

2.1 Process Overview

2.2 Team practices

2.2.1 Within Pyracle Group

2.2.2 Intergroup communication

2.2.3 Conflicts and Drawbacks

2.3 Team processess

3.Conclusion

1. Introduction

In our final project our task was to create a virtual collaboration plattform with a virtual team that we do not meet in person to collaborate with. Our collaborative activities were solely through virtual collaboration media. The developments in communication and collaboration technology enables a potential transformation of real collaboration into virtual collaboration. Keeping in mind the relative complexity of the virtual collaboration architecture and process, the virtual team collaboration includes advantages compared to the classical way of collaborating in real teams, however it also includes drawbacks. How to collaborate in a virtual environment? What are issues I need to pay attention to?

In this self-reflection, I will first review the virtual collaboration process as I experienced during our group project, in particular the team practices and team processes. Second, I will analyze and draw the benefits as well as drawbacks on the different team collaboration levels during our virtual collaboration. What are major advantageous when working in a virtual team without any interpersonal connection? What are disadvantages? What may induce difficulties in the collaboration process? Finally, I will conclude with my personal opinion on why our collaboration was truly a success.

2. Collaboration Process

Collaboration literally means working with each other to complete a task. It is characterized as a recursive process where at least two or more parties work together to realize shared goals by sharing knowledge and information, learning through interaction and building consensus on critical issues. Most collaboration requires leadership. Without leadership the virtual team may face serious dangers. Confusion within the team about the collaboration process may lead to inefficiency and endanger goal accomplishment. Although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group, a leader that individual team members can refer to in case of conflictual issues, needs to be clearly stated. In particular, virtual teams with designated leaders that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources and as a result greater rewards. The goal of collaboration needs to be clearly explained to the group by the leader through reaching a consensus about what the virtual team wants to accomplish.

2.1 Collaboration Process Overview

The following figure illustrates the architecture and process of our virtual collaboration:

2.2 How did the team practices look like?

Our virtual team consists of 2 teams, Pyracle group and Give Me Five. Interestingly, our team present individuals with a diverse background. In Team Pyracle, we were German, Dutch and Chinese. In Team Give me Five, both team members were Chinese. Whether this diverse cultural background raises issues to our collaboration will be explained further below. 
Team Pyracle, including me, was attending class in the morning session, team GM5 was attending the evening session. We, the team members of Pyracle, met at every class session, however we never met the other team and its members in person. The different methods of communication were written, oral, face-to-face and online/virtual communications.

2.2.1 Pyracle Group

The interaction and collaboration within Pyracle can be summarized by one word – harmonic. Since all Pyracle team members were attending the same class session we were able to make use of both real (written, oral, face-to-face) as well as virtual/online communication in our collaboration. Meeting every morning in class, we communicated major critical issues and future steps face-to-face and written, since in addition to the oral communication in a real communication environment the body language  supports the communication of creative thoughts and innovative ideas (Kavakli and Gero 2002 ). After distributing the task load, we used virtual communication to check up progress and the current status of individual work.  Consequently, the next class, we  were able to perfectly continue where we stopped the week before, since through virtual collaboration, the team members were already informed about the current status of working progress. After the case occurred, that team members were missing in some classes, we decided to summarize the real meeting in an e-mail to keep missing team members up to date. Communication in general was very vital and intense within Pyracle group. Besides the communication needed to progress in work, the harmonic atmosphere let communication also be used to motivate each other and enable an interpersonal relation to develop between team members (Virtual Teams Survey Report 2012). Since we were relatively small in size and our collaboration was quite harmonic, we did not have a certain leader rather let things happen. Summing up, for Pyracle the basis of our collaboration was real and harmonic communciation, supported and accompanied by virtual communciation.

2.2.2 Intergroup communication

Between Pyracle and GM5 communication was somewhat more challenging than within the individual group. Real communication was not available, hence the only way to communicate was virtual/online communication. But how to communicate with someone you do not know at all and especially with a diverse cultural background? In team Pyracle there was already a Chinese group member. I was aware of the different communication style resulting from the different cultural background. Communication styles can mainly be distinguished between high and low context communication (Gudykunst 2001). High context communication includes the following communication characteristics: being indirect, inferring meaning, interpersonal sensitivity, using feelings to guide behavior, and using silence. On the other hand, low context communication includes the following traits: being dramatic, dominant, animated, relaxed, attentive, open, friendly, contentious, and impression-leaving. Asian cultures tend to stick to high context communication styles, whereas European cultures tend to stick to low context communication styles (Gudykunst 2001). Basically, what I observed within our collaboration was that the western communication was more dramatic, open and more precise than the Asian communication. In addition, the Asian communication was far more indirect than the western communication. However, since I lived and studied before in China, I was aware of the upcoming differences in communication and tried to anticipate by adapting my own communication style.

To shed light on the above drawn impressions, let's first analyze the communication mediums we used. Primarly, we used e-mail communication for instant work updates. For the basic steps in the collaboration process we used skype to communicate. We scheduled skype meetings before by e-mail, to ensure that everyone is participating. The major difficulties were primarly to find an appropriate time frame, where all team members were able to participate in the meeting. Furthermore, due to language barriers we were not able to make use of oral communication. We used written communication on skype. The basic advantage of communicating via skype was not given anymore, since we were not able to capitalize on oral communication to enhance creative thoughts and innovative ideas. Collaborating by written communication on skype equals somehow e-mail communication with an additional instant character.

2.2.3 Conflicts and Drawbacks

As already explained above, the collaboration and communication within Pyracle was very harmonic and free of any conflicts. However, the intergroup communication and collaboration was subject to major challenges.

A first conflict during our collaboration was information overload. In the beginnings of our collaboration, we somewhat expected the collaboration with the other group to be similar to the collaboration withing Pyracle and thus stick to our previous collaboration style and let things happen. This turned out to be a major pitfall. The other group was very energetic and overhasty which result in a very intense e-Mail traffic. E-Mails were missed to be sent to everyone, because the e-Mail contacts were incorrect. Consequently, I lost the overview of the current status of the work process.

A second conflict was an uncoordinated collaboration process. It was not very clear, which member has to accomplish what task. The first actions taken to approach our final project were basically characterized by randomness. E-Mails with overlapping contents disoverlapped the collaboration process. The emerging confusion lead to an inefficiency in our collaboration. Who has to do what? What am I expected to do? What are the other expected to do? That were the questions I faced when starting to deal with our final project.

A first approach to overcome the above mentioned conflicts and that worked out very well, was to agree on a leader in the virtual team. The leader should ensure a organized and structured work process with clear task assignment and appropriate milestones setting. The leader proposed meeting sessions based on the availability of the individual team members, so that everyone was able to attend the meetings. In addition, he provided an agenda of the meeting, so that everyone could prepare himself for the issues to discuss about. During the meeting, he moderated the cammunication process to ensure progress and not to catch on some irrelevant issues. After each meeting session, he sent a summary of the meeting session to everyone to ensure that all team members have the same content of information are up to date regarding the following milestones.

A third conflict emerged through the different cultural background in terms of working styles. A first skype meeting was proposed for a Sunday where I was travelling in China. In western cultures generally Sundays are free days where you can follow your hobbies and interests besides working. I can not remember a meeting during my studies in Germany to be scheduled on Sundays. That was somewhat surprising to me. Nevertheless, if I would have been in Hong Kong, I would have participated in the meeting. Because I did not have an network connection I couldn't do so, but let the others know about my circumstances. However, the skype meeting took place. That would have been fine, if at least one of the group would have informed me about the results of the meeting. Instead, the details of a plan that was discussed during the meeting were sent to all team members where my name was not included in the specific tasks distribution. I solve the issue by contacting the team members and asking for the results as well as the tasks I need to accomplish. I also clarified my dissatisfaction about the emerging conflict. The response was diverse among the team members. Some did not react at all, whereas others recognized the issue and agreed. Again, I relate the differences to the different cultural backgrounds.

2.3 How did the team process look like?

The virtual collaboration process with its specific steps are congruent to real collaboration in a physical environment with the additional advantegous properties of efficiency, flexibilty and innovation.         

Since we had a leader in our virtual team, task distribution was centralized. Our basic commitment among all team members was to achieve the best out of our virtual collaboration. To be innovative, creative, persistent was what all of us agreed upon. We  We agreed on to share all relevant information and knowledge and thereby share the collective success we will achieve. That commitment and integrity of sharing values made up the basis of our following collaboration and its success (Markus 2000). and that are relevant to achieve (Virtual Teams Survey Report 2012) our virtual collaboration's objectives.

Why efficient?

Since the collaboration was based on virtual interaction and all of our team members had instant access to devices and communication media, we did not experience sunk costs with respect to time. In business processes, sunk costs are retrospective costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs can be seen as a contrast to prospective costs, which are future costs that will occur during regular collaboration process. Through instant up to date collaboration we ensure constant work progress and minimize the time input to achieve results.

            ''Time is money'' – Benjamin Franklin

As Benjamin Franklin recognized in the very beginnings of economic history, the factor time is the most critical and valuable asset in nowadays work world. Hence, by minimizing time input to achieve and accomplish goals, efficiency is almost pushed to its boundaries. Maximum efficiency is crucial for being able to survive in fierce competitive business and collaboration environments not only on corporate, but also personal levels.

Why flexible?

For virtual collaboration the only requirement is access to communication devices and media. Notebooks and even smartphones are for students meanwhile the basic equipment to work with. In addition, permanent network connection is available in Hong Kong and most other working environments. Hence, I was able to work and make progress at any time I wanted and any location I was at. Whether at home or at school or underway, I was able to work on my specific tasks, reply to e-mails from my virtual team members or just update my current status of progress. This provides me with flexibility that I would not have in a classical real working environment. Without instant network connection and mobile communication devices such as tablet PCs or smartphones, I would need to sit in front of fixed computers that are only available at certain locations.

Why innovative?

Besides the use of modern communication media, we used new innovative collaboration tools in our process. We used Cloud Services to avoid redundancy and inconsistency in the merged versions of our individuals parts. Cloud services are virtual drivers where a predetermined group of people can have access to. Changes are updated instantly and visible to everyone. By saving all documents in one central virtual drive, it provides more independence and flexibility in working with different devices such as notebook, tablets or even smarphones within a group of people. If you change your computer, you just reopen the file that is saved on the virtual drive via the internet. There is no need of mobile hard drives such as USB or flash cards anymore. A further advantage was that you don't need to send a file every time in a new e-Mail to all group members thereby running into danger of missing recipients or confusion of uncompleted mails.

3. Conclusion

When reviewing the process of our collaboration and putting it into relation of what we have achieved as a team, I can proudly say that our collaboration was a true success. When you assess  results, you always take into consideration the environment and framework within which the activities needed to accomplish the results took place. Despite working in a virtual environment and with different methods of collaboration, we managed to keep our focus on our objective and do not let us distracted by irrelevant issues. Our communication, especially within the individual group, was characterized by harmony. Our collaboration process was characterized by efficiency, flexibility and innovation. Although, we experienced some difficulties in the beginnings of our collaboration process, such as information overload, an uncoordinated collaboration process and difficulties resulting from different working styles, the development we undertook even as a virtual team and the increase in quality of communication and working are impressive. Although we never met in person with the other team, after a while of collaboration a familiar atmosphere emerges that raises motivation and makes working with others more comfortable. Therefore, I want to thank all my team members for their efforts and their time taken to accomplish our group project. It was a pleasure to work with you!

References

Kavakli, M., Gero, J.S., 2002: The structure of concurrent cognitive actions: A case study on novice and expert designers, Design Studies: The International Journal for Design Research in Engineering, Architecture, Vol 23/1, 25-40

Gudykunst, W., 2001: International and Intercultural Communication, Sage Publications

Markus, M.K., Manville B., Agnes, C 2000: What Makes a Virtual Organization Work?, Sloan Management Review, MIT, Volume 42, No. 1

Curriculum Discipuli Cura - CityU & CRA International Management Consulting going virtual

Chapter 1 Introduction on the Virtual Community

Curriculum Discipuli Cura (Career Student Management) is an innovative platform where the management consulting business and students become allies in solving issues in the industry. Additionally, it offers significant opportunities for talents to show their managerial knowledge and for the business to identify the right personnel prospects for their business.

This innovative idea is based on the needs for two different parties. Firstly, the management consulting industry requires the best possible candidates for their starting positions in order to remain competitive in their industry. It offers the management consulting industry to:

-     Crowd search for solutions to complex real-time and real-life problems in the current industries. By calling out for motivated students to tackle these problems they can use a wider source of information to solve the problems.

-     Crowd search facilitates out-of-the-box thinking for companies. It will be good for consulting companies repositioning on forecasting potential problems and preventing problems for the potential customers. This broadens their scope instead of only focusing on helping to resolve problems for their current customers. This enables them to expand their customers and market substantially.

-      Discover and follow talents in at an early stage and form a virtual talent pool. This forms an opportunity for the management consulting industry by finding the best of the best and selecting candidates for starting position early. The current selection procedure starts with a pool of thousands of applicants.

The second party refers to students. Student in Business, Management or any other  related field have the possibility to:

-     Develop students personally by applying the learned theory in their universities to real-time and real life problems in the current business landscape. This nourishes their practical development significantly.

-     They can position themselves towards the management consulting companies that host the platform to show their potential. This increases the fare change of being selected for positions by showing your skills on the platform.

-     Create a short term advantage for students. Their knowledge can be applied right away.

-    Offer opportunities for students to work in the field of consulting part-time or full-time after graduation with a virtual-team based online communication and management.

The above-mentioned combines into a set of common motivations for a collaboration in order to receive a share in the collective success in this alliance (Markus et al, 2000)

Chapter 2 Introduction of the both parties involved

The students’party will exist involved students that are final Bachelor year or in their Master or PhD trajectory. Additionally, their study has to be in the field of: Business, Economics or Management within the College of Business at City University Hong Kong. These measures create a certain filter to prevent people with insufficient knowledge on the topics to distort the input into the innovative platform. The party will be explained by a given example from the eyes of the student:

John is a motivated and well-performing student in at CityU in the MA Global Business Management. He is currently in his final Master year and he dreams of getting a challenging job in Management Consulting. He has much knowledge about his field. He discovers the website www.CDC.com and starts to participate on it. He actually discovers that many of the topics he is currently discussing in his classes are applicable to the cases that are available on the website. Motivated and encouraged he starts to participate by discussing online about the cases and coming up with solutions for the complex problems. By now, he already starts to enjoy his studies more because he can use his learned theoretical knowledge in practice, so it now has a purpose on the short term instead of only the long term. Sarah is a talent recruiter for CRA International, a worldwide management consulting company. She regularly posts relevant cases on the platform for students to look into. This way she can help several business units with finding innovative solutions to complex problems by crowd sourcing. Additionally, she keeps track of different potentials that are performing very well on the platform. With a position coming vacant in September she starts to look for several possible candidates. One of these candidates is John. John has a profile on Curriculum Discipuli Cura with his updated résumé and contact details. Sarah pro-actively contacts John to check for his interest in applying for the vacancy that is about the pop-up and he accepts. Eventually, John proves himself throughout the remaining part of the selection procedure and gets the position. It is win-win situation for both parties on multiple levels.

With the development of every industry’s globalization, consulting industry is confronted with more challenges, most focusing on: (1) hard to acquire right set of talent, (2) cost inefficiency operations to match the client’s requirements and (3) limitations of consulting service outsourcing. These challenges are particular obvious for small consulting companies or some consulting companies in developing countries, who have not yet expanded their subsidiaries to other countries. The virtual community enables the consulting company to operate more efficient into finding the right talents for the right positions. Additionally, the forum forms a platform to discuss and solve complex industry problems in an out-of-the-box and extremely low cost way.

In the case of the Universities, success of graduates and satisfaction of students are two important elements in their existence. The ultimate goal for a university is to increase its number of student and to provide quality education in order to increase the chances of their alumni on the job market. This virtual community will greatly improve both quality of education by connecting theory and practice with real-life examples for motivating students. Additionally, this cross fertilization will increase the joy of students in their studies, because their theoretical knowledge can be put into practice. The discovered talents that get recruited in this collaboration form a showcase for universities, increasing their brand image. Therefore, this forms a cost-effective opportunity to create extra value for the University and its students.

Chapter 3 Community Characteristics

Philosopher and scientist Aristoteles (320 BC) was one of the first to set up a definition of what a community is: “A group of people that gather together to share values and ideas.“ This can be seen as the basic definition of a community. The traditional form of a community however is based on direct interaction between people living close to each other (van Dijk, p.63). Parallel to the emergence of the World Wide Web and modern form of communications, modern societies expand across time and space and form so called virtual communities. Following this definition, Curriculum Discipuli Cura is indeed congruent with the basic characteristics of a real community, however embracing and building on the advanced traits of a virtual community. The following figure illustrates the theoretical structure of our community:

A portal is a web system that focuses on providing functions and features to authenticate and identify users as well as an easy, intuitive, personalized and user-customizable web-interface that enables users to facilitate access to information and services that are of primary relevance and interests to the users. Hence, a portal focuses primarily on the benefits and value for the individual user. However, sense and purpose of a community is the collaboration and interaction between individuals and groups of individuals. The individual on its own will not be able to survive and add value in a community, but rather connecting with other individuals enhance and facilitate creativity, problem solving and value creation in terms of win-win outcomes. In this regard our virtual organization is clearly assignable to the category of a virtual community and therefore suited to serve the interest of more than one party.

"Community: The origin of the word "community" comes from the Latin munus, which means the gift, and cum, which means together, among each other. So community literally means to give among each other."

As mentioned above community is about more than one individual or organization create value through interaction and collaboration. Thus, for our virtual organization to work, the following key requirements of a virtual community need to be satisfied:

·         Clear set of goals that provides sense of direction to all members

·         Boundaries that clearly edge the narrow circle of potential members

·         Member’s ability to access the community

·         Members ability to communicate with each other through virtual    

        communication

·         Substantial Relationship between members of community

·         Active participation of members

·        Collaboration and interaction towards certain issues based on virtual

        problem solving concepts

·        Value-Added for all parties involved in virtual collaborative process

Chapter 4 How to translate competences into actual value

Having a community between City University of Hong Kong and ‘’Consulting Company’’ might sound as a very nice-to-have collaboration. Yet, to show its true value it is of high importance to translate the competences that are created through the collaboration into actual value. Balasubramanian & Mahajan (2001) conclude in their research that many companies fail to get real value from virtual communities. In order to turn the community in a success sponsors shall need to invest effort into achieving this. Therefore, City University of Hong Kong and CRA International will need to create a strategic architecture that explains what the competences of this collaboration is and how it will be translated into actual value for all parties. By means of identifying core competences a company or a collaborative party can determine a combination of competences that make them unique in the market facilitate value (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990).

Figure 1 shows a complete picture the following aspects of this virtual collaboration. First, the core competences explain the combination of competences that make the collaboration unique. Secondly, the core product explains the link between the competence and the end-product. It determines the value addition. Thirdly, the end products are the ‘’physical’’ delivery. It explains ‘what the both parties actually get’. Additionally, on both sides of the figure the added value specific to the parties is explained. How does this collaboration create specific actual value for the parties? This collaboration enables both parties to uniquely combine their core assets to create additionally value individually in the industries they operate in.

In order to turn this unique collaboration into a success it is, first of all, very important that both City University and "Consulting Company" acknowledge, build, develop and communicate the core competences of the collaboration. Only when both parties follow the mindset behind the collaboration and balance their values it can become a success. A well structured business model explaining the concept will create a foundation for both parties to remain successful in the collaboration. Since a virtual community needs proper management, we propose to have quarterly meeting between both companies in order to efficiently monitor progress and evaluate successes. In figure two a business model explains the strategic architecture needed for a successful evolution of the collaboration. The University will also take the role intermediate in this collaboration between the students and the consulting companies. This is important in terms of protecting and guiding the students properly. Finally, this virtual collaboration does need periodical face-to-face meetings between both partners in order to maintain key social processes in the collaboration and timely recognize potential issues (Siedrat et al, 2009)

From the perspective of the University it is of high importance to focus on the development of students’ competences on such as communication, problem solving, data analysis and the use of technology. These competences determine the future employees’ success in the work field (Martin et al., 2010) .We therefore also assume that students’ employment preparation positively influences the satisfaction with the university. This collaboration enables students to develop their tacit knowledge that makes them very unique and useful for the CRA International. Tacit knowledge in this case refers to the knowledge in the heads of the students (Polanyi, 1967).

Chapter 5: How do we turn visitors into members?

How students can get access to our CDC.com, involve in it and stay for it voluntarily?

As our CDC.com is a free platform for students and management consulting companies, so it will also face some challenges, for example, students may just visit it for one time and the company cannot retain the talents they need. So we try to find a way to manage this kind of challenges properly and help both parties gain a best-match. Here is our solution

----to establish Online Membership Management System.

Online Membership Management System is a system for both parties can enjoy. As from students’ perspective, we set Membership Forum (an information sharing pool) and students can exchange information and ideas there freely.

And we also provide Job Related Test and Assessment for students to have an overview of knowing about their adaptability and competence to the industry and find their strengths to upgrade and weaknesses to complement.

Based on the result of the job related test and assessment, Free Online Coaching or Training Projects for different levels of new comers will be provided and students can freely to choose whether they will participate in or not.

Talents Fishing Section (to find the talents and form a talent pool, meanwhile to retain the talents here). Actually, this section includes the above three columns and we just give a detailed illustration about how it will be organized and works----if one student thinks she/he is the right person for a CRA International consulting company he/she must achieve the required level in the company set online assessment or test, and when he/she get to the certain level, and then the students can become a star member for the company he/she applied and can be involved into the real consulting project. And based on the performance of project the student has joined, the student will also get an assessment from the company and other online co-workers, if he/she get a considerable score during this section, and then the student will get a another star and his/her membership level will get a higher position and we set the Membership advanced route map (Figure 3) for students learning the detailed path for joining our visual.com. In this way, we can stimulate students’ potential in this field and help them improve a lot and achieve their own career goals.

                                Figure 2 Website examples

City University cooperates with the companies to assess and select potential students----university provides opportunities, like further overseas development plan, and the company provides capital, such as scholarship, to culture talented students. It can be called as “Joint Development Scheme”. And the company can select these talented candidates to intern or work in bank after they graduate. Make students have more opportunities to develop and practice.

Students can also assess the company he/she has served and give a score level, from the “one-time employer” to the “most want-to-join company” and share his/her online working experience with other students in the forum. In this way, from the feedback and score, we can help companies know their position in this field and meanwhile improve their own service and quality and promote their images and reputations.

Chapter 6 The Collaboration Business Model

All the above-mentioned is combined in the collaboration business model which forms the strategic architecture needed to successfully execute the program. This summarizes the road map needed to execute the virtual community.

  

References:

Balasubramanian, S., & Mahajan, V. (2001). The economic leverage of the virtual community. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 5, 103-138.

Lord, Carnes (1981), The Character and Composition of Aristotle's Politics.”, Political Theory 9, 459–478

Lynne M. M., Manville B. & Carole E. A. (2000), what makes a virtual organization work? p. 19-21, Sloan management review.

Markus, M. L., Manville, B., & Agres, E. C. (2000). What makes a virtual organization work?. Sloan Management Review, 42(1), 13-26.

Martin, A. J., Milne-Home, J., Barrett, J., Spalding, E., & Jones, G. (2000). Graduate satisfaction with university and perceived employment preparation. Journal of Education and Work, 13(2), 199-213.

Polanyi, M. (1983). The tacit dimension (pp. 21-25). Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.

Prahalad, C. K., & Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the corporation. Resources, firms, and strategies: A reader in the resource-based perspective, 235-256.

Siebdrat, F., Hoegl, M., & Ernst, H. (2009). How to manage virtual teams. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(4), 63-68.

Thomas Lee, Introduction to Membership & Walkthrough: Managing Web Site Users with Roles.

Van Dijk, Jan (1996), the reality of virtual communities, p.39 – 63, Utrecht University

Self-reflection and Growing-Up Experience Tour by Sissi YAN Xin (52731795)

                                                                         

Self-reflection and Growing-Up Experience Tour by Sissi YAN Xin J

Through the study of High Performance Collaborations course, I experienced a different study tour and I would like to share my experience and reflect about the whole process working with my teammates and the virtual team members here.

I will use the Team Development Process Model (Figure 1) to give a clear description and analysis of my learning experience.

    Figure 1 Team Development Process Model

As the Model showed, the first stage is forming. In this stage, team forms and team members have the original knowledge and impressions about each other. And we exchanged our background information, like countries we are from, programmes we are studying and some basic information, such as email addresses, phone numbers etc. And we named our team name----Pyracle and formed team’s logo that containing all our expected collaboration’s meaning and wishes.

My behavior/commitments: I took the initiative to join them and gave the idea of our team name and logo----Pyracle combining of the good meaning of Pyramid and Circle to imply a good collaboration among us.

During the storming stage, we got further opportunities to know each other, the style of behaving, talking and thinking through the collaboration of the first blog. We mainly discussed the content and framework of the blog and how to allocate each other’s work and reached a consensus about these things mainly through face-to-face, emails and messages occasionally.

My behavior/commitments: I both listened to my teammates’ and exchanged my ideas actively. Put efforts into blog 1 and prepared the presentation mindfully.

Conflicts came out: it mainly performed as the constructive conflict since we were still in the stage to get familiar with each other and adjust each to the collaboration. So we presented more respect on others’ ideas while retaining each’s opinion. The main challenge of the conflict was that it took us a little more time to make decisions. But it was not a big issue as we got more familiar with each other’ s way of thinking and behaving, we could discuss more directly and openly without any barriers.  

The third stage is norming, we formed relatively accepted ground rules and kept contact always and focus on common purposes and objectives. And we were all working actively on our final project and after several times exchanging ideas, finally we came up with the current virtual.com----the CDC.com focusing on the corporation between a consulting company and students mainly from CityU.

Inter-team collaboration with the evening class began from this stage. We communicated mainly through emails and skype for several times. And we discussed fiercely about the final project----what we would present and what time we would discussion.

My behavior/commitments: I hoped the Inter-team collaboration could reach a good ending just as the intra-team collaboration, so I kept consistence to keep contact with all team members and let my ideas known and meanwhile got to know others’.

Conflicts: three main conflicts among inter-team collaboration like time arrangement for meeting, different ideas attacking, and all these resulting in a lot of emails to deliver and classify different information and opinions in order to get the common ideas and support for the final project.We did take a long time to make the final decision with a lot of electronic brainstorming.

Performing stage, the mature period: High commitments were put to achieve the final goals, and working on the final project positively and share information and materials regularly as the common idea has been decided. Positively worked together and almost everyone kept consistent during the collaboration.

The problem is no feedback between inter-teams after the project, just let it finished.

Conclusions:

Several things I learned from the collaborations:

Mutual respect and trust is the root of collaboration and we made decisions based on it. Through mutual respect and trust, we can share our information and exchange our ideas open and freely, meanwhile enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the collaborations which corresponded with the original intention of High Performance collaborations.

Active listening (Figure 2) is important for each stage of our collaboration and actually it was the part that we did very well as we could not only grasp others’ opinions actively, but also could give a response and show interest and also evaluate these opinions positively. Thus it was helpful and beneficial for our collaboration.

Figure 2 Active listening Process and Strategies Model

Open mind was necessary always since it could help us overcome some obstacles and face problems or adverse situations positively and find ways to solve problems.

Communication positively is the key to success and the way we communicate decided the outcome of our collaborations. And the communication technology also influenced the efficiency of our communication. For example, sometimes we could not reply emails immediately, so this to some degree has weakened the sufficiency of our communication, while sometimes we used messages which can quickly deliver the information which we wanted others to know. But no matter what technology we has used, we must try to let others know our opinions and also let them know that I was caring about the collaboration with you and I also had faith to do the project with you!  

Let voice heard: if you don’t say, others will never know what in your mind! So be always willing to speak out your words and involved in the whole process proactively is helpful not only for the whole project’s development, but also is beneficial to one’s growth!

Just as Henry Ford said “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” Thank you for my professor and all my team members’ help and kindly advice at the proper time, it’s a nice journey to meet you and collaborate with you!

References:

"Reflective writing" and "High Performance Teams"by class handout.

McShane/Von Glinow, Organizatioanl Behavior: Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World,5th edition.p.258-259, p.286-287.