# | Video | Duration |
---|---|---|
1 | The importance of teamwork | 03:26 |
2 | Teamwork as a learning strategy | 03:28 |
3 | Basic elements of teamwork | 01:29 |
4 | Facilitating teamwork | 03:18 |
Part IV: Facilitating teamwork
So the tools to facilitate group work are those that have to do with defining the objectives and rules of operation of the group. It is important define responsibilities and individual tasks. There must be a leader. Not a leader of the entire work, but a leader associated with each of the tasks in which the global team work is divided. This distribution must be balanced.
The persons leading tasks must assume their commitments and give explanations. How? Sharing information and results periodically; checking the consistency with other information and results shared by other group members; deciding the strategy to be followed jointly and mutually agreed by all team members; and doing a structured review of the objectives periodically.
This is an aspect that I emphasize a lot, whenever I do this presentation in the subject of 'Introduction to the ICTs' and it is the fact of how to help to consolidate the group, a really difficult task. How I, as a member of a group, can help strengthen the functioning of the group?
It is critical to promote the participation of everybody. It’s as bad, not contributing with their specific part, as not letting someone do their part. All group members have a duty to participate actively, but also the right to be given the opportunity to participate.
Make it easy; give maximum facilities so that all group members can contribute. How? With communication, agreement, organization, planning... designing a detailed work plan with a meeting calendar and keeping the deadlines to make things working properly.
Notice that we propose to use multiple tools, plus face to face meetings that are sometimes hard to achieve, if we want to give everyone the opportunity to participate.
A difficult aspect: conflict resolution and negotiation. The hints are based on the use of assertiveness. Some of you were talking before about empathy... assertiveness has to do with this. It consists in being between the aggressiveness and the passivity, that is, if we have to say a hard issue related to our teammates, we should say it with empathy. Trying to understand why the other team members are behaving as they do.
Interesting tools are also focused on reviewing progress, task integration looking for consistency between what each team member is doing and evaluating how the group advances and the results obtained periodically, not only at the end… when it has no solution.