GROUP DYNAMICS

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GROUP DYNAMICS PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• Sus Lundgren

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Why this lecture?

• Generations(!) of MDI/ID-students have requested
  it
• Even if most of youve already worked in groups
  at the uni
• most of you were in very homogenous groups

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The life of a group six stages

• 1) Initial stage
• Insecurity, curiosity, showing off
• 2) The honeymoon
• Intense communication and bonding
• 3) The we-stage
• Roles and means of communication are being
  established
• In groups with more than seven members, sub
  groups emerge
• Diversity is seen as a strength

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The life of a group six stages

• 4) Conflict stage
• Irritation, less praise, aggression, envy
• Diversities are annoying
• Group pressure builds up
• 5) Plateau stage
• Fatigue, resignation
• 6) The effective stage
• Unity, everyone working well towards the same
  target
• Tranquility, pleasure in ones work, satisfaction
• Remains until conditions change

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One aspect of roles

• Members of a group have task-related roles
• System architecturer
• Programmer
• Database programmer
• Designers
• Interaction designers
• Graphic designers
• Project leader
• Technical Project Leader
• Technical writer

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Another aspect of roles

• Members of a group also have roles related to
  behaviour/personality
• There are various theories on how to describe
  personalities
• Cattell Personality Inventory (16 PF), pairs of
  attributes (intovert-extrovert,
  submissive-detemined, exact-creative etc.)
• Belbin
• and numerous tests

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Belbins team roles

• Meredith Belbin and his colleagues have spent
  years studying team work in an experimental
  environment
• They have defined eight team roles
• Coordinator (calm, confident, controlled)
• Plant (creative, unorthodox, non-practical)
• Implementer (conservative, dutiful)
• Shaper (extrovert, dynamic, pushing, provoking)
• Monitor/Evaluator (analytic, strategic, dry)
• Team worker (sensitive, mild, indecisive, caring)
• Resource Investigator (curious, communicative)
• Completer-Finisher (thorough, perfectionist,
  anxiuos )

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Team roles teams

• Each of us have a primary and a secondary role,
  etc.
• Well-working teams consist of people with many
  different roles
• One- or two-role teams are hardly ever functional
• A person sometimes acts as his or her secondary
  team role, if it is missing in the group
• If the team is smaller than eight, some members
  may act out both their primary and secondary
  roles
• The ideal team size seems to be 4-6 people

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Reality, part 1
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Reality, part 2
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Reality, part 3
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The Industrial Project

• Unfortunately theres a widespread distrust
  between programmers and designers, leading to
  numerous conflicts
• Obvious reasons are
• Time planning designers are normally busy during
  the beginning of the project, programmers in the
  end
• The client There are always misunder-standings
  leading to redesign ? new code
• User tests These also cause redesign and might
  annoy not only the programmers

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The Industrial Project

• Inner reasons
• Lack of understanding of the problems and
  possibilities within the other discipline
• View on design For the designer it lives and
  changes due to changed requirements, it is never
  really finished. For the programmer its much
  easier if the design is set from the beginning
• Programmer Youre irresolute, changing stuff all
  the time, whereas Im the one making the
  important job!
• Designer If the user cant understand the system
  it doesnt matter how genial the code is, you
  arrogant _at_!!!

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Tensions
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What can be done?

• The groups must get an understanding of each
  others disciplines
• The entire group should take part in the initial
  system design meetings
• Let programmers take part as observers during
  user tests
• Let the entire group sit in the same room, if
  possible
• More and better communication, cross
  fertilization of ideas
• Make early user tests to minimize last-minute
  redesigns

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About you

• You have different competences
• Graphical designers
• Writers
• Programmers
• Different areas of knowledge ? different views
  different wor(l)ds
• More
• Different levels of ambition
• Different ways of working
• Keeping your known roles (programmer etc) or
  switching and learning from another?

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Stuck in The Middle
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The Project leader

• The project leader serves as an interface and
  sometimes a filter between
• the members of the group (or the groups in the
  group!)
• The customer
• The own company
• Other companies or people involved in the project
• The project leader needs to
• Keep everyone reasonably happy compromise
• Make sure the project is done on time within
  budget ? lots of administrative work

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The Project leader

• The project leader needs to be
• Sensitive
• Rather calm
• Self confident
• Tough-stomached
• The project leader needs to have
• Good communication skills
• Good negotiation skills

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Project management 1a

• List all activities you can think of
• Make time estimate
• Divide them into groups
• Time based (e.g. preparations)
• Skill based (e.g. database programming)
• Assign people to tasks
• Make a time line
• Leave slack!
• Try to foresee problems can you plan to avoid
  them?
• Fear of computer breakdowns ? daily backups to
  server
• Have frequent check-up meetings

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Lets manage a party!

• List activities
• Divide them into groups
• Time based (e.g. preparations)
• Skill based (e.g. database programming)
• Assign people to tasks
• Make a time line
• Try to foresee problems
• Check-ups?

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Easy reading

• Meredith Belbin Management Teams - så skapas
  framgångsrika team
• Management Teams Why they succeed or fail
• Meredith Belbin Teamroller i praktiken
• Team Roles at Work
• Ann Marianne Fredriksson De elva sammansvurna

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Zookeeper Homework

• How many sounds are there in Zookeepers game
  mode?
• Do you think the sound feedback matters? Why? Why
  not?
• Which one sound do you think is the most
  important one?

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Zookeeper Sounds

• I found some 15

• Marking
• Shifting places
• Scoring
• Cumulative scoring
• All-of-a-kind scoring
• Angry animal
• No more move
• Running out of time
• Level done
• Level up

• Animals fall down onto new level
• Game over animals run away
• Mouse-over options
• Pause (actually the same as angry animal late
  fix?
• Background music