Business Communication Reports

October 2016

Executive Summary

Purpose and method of this report

Teamwork requires a set of interdependent activities, performed by individuals who collaborates with each other toward a common objective. Teams are expected to work expeditiously and efficiently with other members of the team to carry out the project, and precisely summarize the results in a report. The series of actions to achieve this result can be divided into three categories: the transition process, action processes, and interpersonal processes. The purpose of this report are to:

· Recommend ways that a team can facilitate effective team writing in a report.

· Determine the procedures and techniques by which team work gets done.

· Three approaches virtual teams can interact successfully increasing team effectiveness, while avoiding misunderstandings.

We each conducted a survey with our classmates to discover types of methods and structures needed for effective teamwork in writing a report. Such as: sharing files, scheduling meetings, communicating, relationship building, and brainstorming. Each team contained up to ten members selected from the University of Houston – Downtown.

Finding and conclusions

We used multiple respondents to ensure the study and research of our data were valid, and to over some common methods bias. Many of the respondents believed that effective teamwork requires that people work as a cohesive unit.

The result of this study shows that writing a compelling team report involves individuals to collaborate with others by concentrating their efforts in a common direction and achieving an outcome that can only be reached by working together. Individual members must learn how to coordinate their actions, and any strains and stresses in interpersonal relations need to be identified and resolved (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1995; Cohen & Bailey, 1997)

Recommendations for effective team writing on a report

1. According to Forsyth (2009), “Interpret and evaluate the team’s mission, including identifying of its main tasks as well as the operative environmental conditions and team resources available for mission execution.” (p. 367)

2. Tracking task and progress toward mission accomplishment, interpreting system information in terms of what needs to be accomplished for goal attainment.

· Internal systems monitoring (tracking team resources such as personnel, equipment, and other information that is generated or contained within the team.

· Environmental monitoring (tracking the environmental conditions related to the team.

3. Assisting team members to perform their tasks. Assistance may occur by:

· Providing a teammate verbal feedback behavior or coaching

· Helping a teammate behaviorally in carrying out actions

4. Preemptive conflict management to involve establishing conditions to prevent, control, or guide team conflict before it occurs. Reactive conflict management includes working through task and interpersonal disagreements among team members.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

1 Introduction Comment by Shirley Gonzalez: Hello, please check if the introduction is correct. If not let me know so I can correct it. Thank you.

Teams have been in vogue in business since the 1900s. A team, works together to have meetings, plan together assignments, brainstorm, and relate with one another. In order to have an effective team one must show respect to team mates, collaborate with one another, solve the problem, if there is any, and have a mission to finish what they started. What would we do if we didn’t have teams? Well, if there is no team, then people wouldn’t be able to complete work, and also there wouldn’t be effective businesses.

The purpose of this report is team writing. Team writing is where you share ideas, plan, draft, use logic, clear writing, and the list can continue. Effective team writing works when everyone collaborates by doing each part of what they are assigned to write, but most of all to be able to communicate with one another, and have a unity in order to be effective team writing.

Objective

Our objective is to answer the following questions: How can a team facilitate effective team writing on a report? What does it mean for “everybody to own what we’ve got to get done”? What are three approaches a virtual team can take to help make this happen? First step is to set clear goals for the team a whole. The goals should be “smart”. This acronym is for specific, measureable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. We will next define a procedure for members to make decisions and solve problems.

Methodology

A survey was conducted among our peers to gather the necessary data in order to determine what approach and systems would be required to have effective teamwork in writing a report. The survey was used to question students of various fields of study to assess what factors influence effective team writing. The questionnaire addressed the different factors that affect successful team work such as brainstorming, building relationships, sharing data, and communication. The survey was administered to one hundred and eighty students from diverse majors such as Biology, Fine Arts, Computer Sciences, Accounting, and Marketing. The figure below shows the composition of the survey sample.

Findings

Our team started our study with a poll of our own. We all gave three elements that we thought were the top three in an effective group. When than took the top five and each person gave the top 3 of the given options. The results of our poll can be seen below in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Results of poll taken by each group member

At the end of the poll, the top three for our group were trust, communciation and taking responsibility for individual assignments. While researching, we were able to determine that the elements we individual choose as the top elements actually fit in with our findings.

One of the important elements of an effective virtual team is trust. As seen in the below Figure 2, an effective team starts with trust. We can see that trust and communication combined helps to establish group effectiveness. In order for a team to function cohesively, there must be trust. It has been researched that bulding trust can be a challenge witin virtual teams (Cascio, 2000). As Yael ZOFI, author of “A Manager’s guide to Virtual Teams,” stated,

In the virtual environment, actions speak louder than words, and the cohesion that is so critcal for teamwork develops when people can count on each other. Commitment leasds to trust. Planinly said, if a team member promise to do explain something, that person should deliver on that promiose (ZOFI, 2012).

Figure 2. Group effectiveness begins with trust (Wyrick & Cisse, 2010).

Once there is trust, the next element is effective communication. Without effective communicatation, a task cannot be completed which will result in negative images of team members and an overall lack of teamwork. In the beginning of a project there has to be a defined why of commuinicating agreed upon by every member of the group. As stated int the article, “Making Virtual Teams Work,” published by the Harvard Review Board,

The only way to avoid the pitfalls is to be extremely clear and disciplined about how the team will communicate.

Once we have established trust and effective communication, each person will be responsible for their roles in the project. Once each roles has been completed the end result will be the final project. Each person is given the responsibility to complete a portion of the project with the understanding that all portions will be combined to formulate the completed project. When all the member assume their responsiblites it makes working in the group effective. If certain aspects are not completed it leaves a burden on other members and can hinder the completetion of the project.

Conclusions

Fostering principles of strategic and effective writing in an academic setting establishes a foundational platform for the student (learner) when aligning themselves with the challenges and achievements of “Leading and Developing High Performance Teams”. This foundational platform is fabricated on a cognitive field of exposure and ideal theorems which will exercise “key factors such as interpersonal dynamics, organizational culture, decision-making”, forming deadlines, cultivating team unity, nurturing constructive feedback and appropriate virtual team communication. Therefore, each team member must be bounded individually by the pledge of self-accountability, self-awareness, character, competency, and commonality which predicates on the primary variables; the team, the company, and the objective.

Recommendations

References