Week 9: Team Analysis

Introduction

This week, I will be going through team analysis. Working in a team has been a different experience for me. This is my first University paper and the other parts so far have been individual work. 

To our advantage, we formed our team early in the semester, so we've always been in contact, talking about our topics and how we were getting on with our work. For the past 3 weeks, we've been working together on the report. It's a much bigger task than the individual position paper, so working in a team has made it much easier.

Early on in the report, we decided to elect a leader and editor. We elected Jade as Leader and me as Editor. We shared our position papers and started allocating tasks.

Leadership

Coordinator

Nathan has taken the role of coordinator. Even though in the beginning we elected Jade as the official Leader of the team, as things changed, Nathan filled this role. Whether it's because of his time in the army or something else, Nathan has found it easy to find strengths in the team and use those to our advantage. He's found it easy to delegate tasks to everyone and generally take charge.

The allowable weakness for this role being manipulative or delegating personal work is not something I have noticed though.

Implementer

Nathan has come under the role of Implementer as well I've found. He is highly motivated and has had the task of completing this report in his focus the whole time. Even around the time of his wisdom teeth removal, he remained task-oriented and checked in with us to see where we were at. He also feeds off the guidance from the rest of the team, giving everyone's ideas merit.

Ryan also fits in with an Implementer role. He has been a strong leader alongside Nathan, both of whom are disciplined and hardworking. Ryan works well with guidance from the rest of the team and is always looking for ideas and input from the rest of us.

Again, the allowable weakness for this role, rigid and doesn't like change, doesn't really fit either, as they have both been happy to adapt to changing format within the report and differing information.

Team Roles

Resource Investigator

I would say that both Nathan and Ryan have taken the role of Resource Investigator. With Nathan's career in the army, he's had connections to resources, such as studies in areas applicable to us. Ryan, with his family's connection, was able to obtain information on certain sections of preventive health in the Ministry. They have both been great communicators, something I have trouble with at times. This has been an invaluable role for us, as having two such extroverted members has made it all work much better.

The allowable weakness for this role is considered to be "easily bored", but this isn't so much of a weakness, as there has been so much work to be getting on with, this has lead to the Resource Investigators communicating their boredom and motivating the rest of the team.

Team Worker

Jade and Bridget are both Team Workers, working alongside each other, as they both covered the same topic for the position paper, elderly well-being. As we are using this topic in our report, it has been both Jade and Bridget working together to mould their information into a workable format.

Ryan is also a Team Worker, being a very social part of the group. He has been aware of others needs, something that I consider valuable when working with other people.

The allowable weakness for this role being "indecisiveness", has been somewhat of a drawback, but, after reviewing the Belbin Team Roles subject, I consider the role of a Team Worker to be a valuable part of a team.

Plant

Bridget is someone who has been happy to go with the flow and see what others are thinking before contributing her ideas. She is then happy to do what needs to be done. She was allocated tasks for some of the harder topics for our Recommendations section and has brought forward some interesting ideas.

Jade is also a Plant. She has had some very creative ideas around a few of the topics we've worked on in our report. They both came up with good ideas for recommendations on hazardous drinking, which has helped immensely.

The allowable weakness for this role is described as "unrealistic", something I have not noticed of either Jade or Bridget yet.

Conclusion

One thing I have learned about myself doing this team analysis is that I seem to have trouble identifying weaknesses in people. Listening to the lectures on Belbin Team Roles, I was quick to assign people to roles in my head, but the allowable weaknesses left me indecisive.

Up until this point, I think our team has worked effectively together. Nathan and Ryan, in their combined roles as Implementers and Coordinators, have proven themselves valuable to our team. Ryan, Bridget, and Jade in their roles as Team Workers have kept everyone happy and working well together. Ryan initiated meeting in person and it was good to meet face to face and get to know the others a little better. Implementers and Plants work well together, swapping ideas and the rest of the team working through these.

My role as Completer Finisher is fitting, as I am the Editor for this report and will prove valuable in the days to come. This role has allowed me to work well with both Nathan and Ryan, in the writing and structuring of the report. 

I can see that too many Team Workers could be a problem, as not a lot of work would get done, but Ryan with his combined roles has proved himself a valuable member of this team.