Assignment: Team Motivation
Introduction
Working as a team makes work easier. However, teamwork is also faced by a couple of challenges; just to mention but a few, interpersonal differences, and failures to agree with each other are some of the common challenges teams face while working together. Every team also must have a team leader; he or she must have leadership skills such as technical competence, judgment, conceptual skills, track record character, and interpersonal skills among many others (Cameron, 2012).
In a college or university setting, class assignments can be either individual assignments or group work assignments. Individual assignments are quite easy and fast to do as you do not have to consult or share ideas with other students; after all, you are the only person who will get a mark for a job well done. On the other hand, group assignments may be given a longer duration because it requires the group members to go carry out some individual research on the assignment and on a later date, meet up and discuss what they found. In this case, concluding can be quite difficult more so because every member feels the ideas they voiced are more viable than the other members ideas. According to Mosow (2015), regardless of the type of team you have, four things define a good and successful team. These include shared goals and objectives, shared values, synergistic harmony "if you work as a group, high chances are that you will beat all other teams that failed to work as a team, creation of great skills and recurrent reward and recognition- when you fill your mind with positivity and develop a habit of doing things in the right manner; you will end up doing no or fewer things wrong.
Strategies used to motivate a Team during the Final Push
At one point or another, each team will lack synergistic harmony, and for this reason, the team ends up finishing assignments so late or in other cases end up rushing last minute; this stresses out the whole team, and there are high odds of doing the assignment in a shoddy manner. This is the time when a group leader should play up his game and do everything in his ability to motivate his team. Some of the strategies a team leader can use to motivate his team during that last final push include planning uninterrupted work and re-evaluating the group members workload.
Planning uninterrupted work
Apart from the group assignments assigned to you as a student, there are many other individual assignments you may need to attend to as time is running out. As the deadline approaches, you not only get stressed but also fail to give the assignments you're all. Some members even end up not participating in group discussions as they try to beat the 1-hour deadline of other assignments. As a leader, in such a group, I would plan for uninterrupted work; to avoid distractions when working on the group assignments, I would ask all group members to suggest a time that is convenient for everyone. This would be a time when every member will engage in discussions and concentrate entirely on group assignments. This will reset the balance of the group members as they will have ample time to complete their individual tasks and the group assignments.
Re-evaluate the group members workload.
To get work done fast during this period when every member is working very hard to meet deadlines, it would be a good idea to re-evaluate the members workload. In such a group, I would identify each members strong points; what they are good at or even what the love doing. I would then assign some responsibilities to the members depending on their strong points; this would get make the team more productive as it would be shielded from low-priority work.
Conclusion
The workload in a computer science class can overwhelm a student, so much that they even miss the deadlines at times. As a group leader, I strongly believe the above strategies would go a long way to help in the completion of the work in time; understanding the teams strong points and setting up a convenient time for group discussions would ensure that neither the individual assignments for the group assignments are compromised.
References
Cameron, K. (2012). Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Mosow, J. (2015). Help Your Overwhelmed, Stressed-Out Team.