week 2 : 16 Jan
project management
Assignment 1 Scenario:
6.00 pm
You have been made project manager for a web redesign for your corporate internal (intranet) website. Employees in the division are geographically dispersed, and your boss told you that your team will come from all parts of the division. This means that most (maybe all) of the work is going to need to be performed via a virtual team.
What are the benefits and drawbacks to such an arrangement? How will you help the team develop a feeling of "we-ness"?
Thinking back to teams that you have worked on before ... what made them effective or not? Why?
Post a 200-300 word essay to your blog by 7 pm. If you have not yet sent me your IM contact information, please do so ASAP!
Assignment 2:
7.00 pm
Students have been divided into
three groups.
You'll want to read tonight's essay as well as the reading reflection of your team members.
Now, rethink your goals in the light of what has been expressed by the class. Post to your blog three personal goals (design, group dynamics, whatever) for our next five months of working together. Also list two team roles that you are willing to take on and two that you would prefer not to be assigned. Try to express this as a story (narrative) rather than a bulleted list.
We'll shoot for more synchronous conversation at 8 pm.
Assignment 3:
8.10 pm
Group leaders for tonight
Group 1: Magnus
Group 2: Randa
Group 3: Kristina
Group leader assignment: contact the other members of your team and figure out the best way for y'all to communicate tonight. For people with conference calling on their phones, that might be the best. This first challenge is to simply figure out how to communicate in as close to a synchronous environment as possible.
Assignment 4:
9.00 pm
Final assignment has three parts:
- Make sure you have a blog post that specifically outlines your goals and the roles you are willing (and not willing) to take for the team. This is very important -- it may result in a realignment of the class.
- Find two or more sites that reflect the end product you think you'd like to produce (or be able to produce by the time we conclude in June) - either as an individual or through group effort. Post these to your blog by Monday (when reading is due). Give us the URL and your reasons for selecting them.
- Finally, think about standards and adoption (fall quarter lessons!) as it relates to interoperability of instant messenging clients. Why do you think IM is not as seamless as e-mail? Share your arguments for or against interoperability in IM.