MB 127
Leading
the Team
All team members will be required to lead the team for one of the five projects.
If your group has six people, then two people will have to co-lead a project.
If your team has four people, then whoever leads the first exercise, the team
building exercise will not turn in a report, but your team could still win the
extra point on the midterm award. The team leader for the project will be responsible
for team leadership. The books Running Meetings (RM), Boston: Harvard Business
School Publishing, 2006 and Leading the Team (LT) Boston: Harvard Business School
Publishing, 2006, provide guidelines for leading the project. The team leader
should plan meetings using the checklist on p. 80 of RM and prepare an agenda
for the meeting in advance following the form on page 81 on RM. Strategies for
accomplishing team goals should be developed with the aid of the forms at the
end of LT. All teams should submit a list of who is leading what project by
the deadline noted on the syllabus.
The projects (each project led by a team leader):
1. Team Building Exercise. Each team will plan a team building exercise to be conducted for 30 minutes in class. There are a variety of possible exercises that can be conducted. For example, the team leader can bring in a variety of construction materials and the team can build a work of art. The goal is to interact, get to know each other, and start working together as a team. The exercise should keep the group engaged in the task for 30 minutes. Everyone should be engaged at some point, there should be lots of interaction, and a goal should be strived for. Thirty or less minutes spent talking to each other about non-class topics would not be an effective exercise. Each team will describe their exercise at the end of class. The team leader will submit a one page description of the exercise and the goals that he or she was trying to achieve at the beginning of class. The class will vote on the best exercise and the winning team will get 1 bonus point on the midterm.
2. Case Presentation. Each team will be given 20 minutes to present a case as assigned on the syllabus. Guidelines for a case presentation are provided on the syllabus.3. Two Case Write-ups. Each group will do two case analyses. Questions will be provided for each case. The case analyses will be a maximum of 5 double-spaced typed pages using a 12 point font with one inch margins on each side. Please number the pages, staple the pages, and do not put the paper in a binder or folder. Guidelines for formatting the paper are on the syllabus. The case write-up can not be on a case you are presenting and is due on the day of another group's case presentation.
5. Great Leader Presentation. At the end of the course each
group will present an analysis of a famous leader. Guidelines will be provided.
Each group will have 20 minutes to present their analysis of a leader. The presentation
will be due on the date noted on the syllabus.
Team Grade. Each person will receive a group grade for each
of these projects. Each person in the group involved in working on a project
will fill out a group evaluation form rating each other as a means of providing
feedback to me about the efforts of each team member. If a team member averages
less than 3 averaged across all of the rating items from the other group members,
that member will have their grade lowered one grade below the group grade. If
the team member averages 1 or less, that member will receive an F.
Leader Grade. For each of these exercises the team leader
will also receive a grade for leadership of the presentation. The team leader
will provide documentation of their leadership efforts in terms of the forms
they used from LT and RM, a list of members involved in the project, as well
as a 5 page maximum written explanation of their leadership efforts. This write-up
will discuss how the project progressed as well as your efforts at leadership.
In terms of the project, the explanation should discuss meetings held and milestones
reached in accomplishing the project, and should make reference to the forms
from LT and RM used. In terms of leadership efforts, the leader should fill
out the “Checklist for Evaluating Yourself as a Team Leader” (LT,
p. 84) as an aid to discussing his or her leadership efforts. I will not be
grading you on how highly you rate yourself on the checklist in order to encourage
honest self-reflection on your efforts. You should view the checklist as a set
of guidelines for a discussion of the successes and failures of your leadership
efforts. It will not be possible to discuss everything on the checklist, just
highlight some strengths and weaknesses. The leader will be graded on their
group management and their group product.
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page last modified on
1/21/09