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Teaming and Communication Assessment
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"Bioterrorism in the 21st century - this subject alone is enough to make any dedicated researcher quake in his boots because of the sheer enormity of such a research task. Moreover, current information on biodetection methods change on a weekly, if not daily, basis, as scientists all over the world post new findings in science journals, message pages, and websites all over the Internet. Weeding out the information - the good from the bad, the relevant from the irrelevant, and the factual from the false is indeed a difficult job. While our Project Homepage team was certain that they wanted to work on technology that could somehow counter bioterrorism, few, if any, of the members actually had any idea of the size of the task at hand; however, I am happy to note that we do not seem to be floundering in the least. Much of that has to do with the fact that as a team, we work as a well-oiled machine. Our talents are varied, as some of us excel in making web pages, while others are masters at hunting down specific information on the Internet, or decipher and understand much of the technical jargon. Still, some of our members are able to calculate the economic aspects of our project and others are able to synthesize the vast amounts of data. It is a pleasure to be able to "bounce" ideas off of each other and whatever piece of a possibly brilliant idea is missing, is often discovered just by casually discussing it with other team members. Between our frequent group e-mails and meetings, we have never been at a loss for great ideas. Working as a team, it is rare that a team member does not finish
their assigned part of the project, for they are in danger of putting
back the entire team, and it seems that the enthusiasm and drive
to create a finished project and web page is shared by all the team
members. As each day of the project passes, the reality of the finished
product motivates us all because we realize that our project could
very well be a prototype of a system that can potentially be used
to help many people. "This year our student team amazed me. Given that this project
was an extracurricular activity the students knew that they had
to divide up the work, from the start, and each do their part, and
they came through for each other. The students understood each person's
contribution depended upon the work of others and so they kept to
self-imposed deadlines. My job became a coordinator, proofreader
and organizer of student activities and ideas." "Technology played a large role in the overall communication
between team members. Not only were we able to use e-mail to continually
keep in touch, however, it played many other important parts. I
was able to set up an e-mail group using Yahoo!
Groups. In this group we set up one centralized e-mail address,
that when sent mail, enabled everyone in the group to receive the
message. Most times these e-mails were sent out, and within minutes
of the e-mail being sent, a reply would already be made; everyone
was willing to help each other wherever help was needed. Information
would frequently be sent out from a person that pertained to someone
else's component of the project, another example of people helping
each other. This system kept an online log of every e-mail message
that was sent to the group. Being able to view the number of e-mails
sent per month, and various other statistics, it was interesting
watching the e-mail count rise as deadlines would come. Our current
e-mail count is currently at an incredible 267, and quickly rising.
Anyone in the group was able to "eavesdrop" on our progress
at any time they would like. Through this online system, we were
able to set up automatic reminders to help us keep on schedule.
These reminders were sent out to every member of our online group
as we approached important dates; such as progress report and component
due dates." "The team effort has progressed extremely well this year due to the experience of some returning team members and the teacher. Just as our project will require the concerted effort of a group of trained individuals, so too did our team function with the assembled skills of students who had a variety of talents and interests. This type of work that the team has taken on cannot be done by an individual since the skills sets required are too diverse. This year's project was an above average challenge because of the
technical issues involved as well as current national events. It
has been essential to the vitality of the team effort for each member
to fill the others in on how the work is progressing. It is only
then that the real value of a multi-member group can be realized." 3 Lessons Learned
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