BUS 188: Chapter 2 Outline

Matthew Mercado

07/16/16

BUS 188 (11:00am-3:00pm)

Chapter 2 Outline (2 page minimum)

Aggarwal

Chapter 2 Outline

                  When we enter into the workforce alongside our peers, there is one thing that we’ll be primarily doing: working together to achieve a common goal for a company, place, or business. However, there is a key difference when achieving a goal and receiving feedback on improvement vs. achieving a goal without any assurance that we’re doing it correctly. The difference between both best defines the words Collaboration and Cooperation. In collaborative efforts, feedback is given so as to improve whatever it is we are trying to accomplish. That feedback is necessary not only to evaluate how we are doing, but also to learn how to make situation/scenario easier. If, however, we aren’t trying to receive any form of feedback, all we are doing is cooperating. It’s true that we are working together to achieve a common goal, but if we aren’t getting any feedback on our performance, then how could we improve? We may not know ourselves if our work is correct or if there’s anything needed to enhance the experience of learning. For example, when working together on a group paper, one could say that everyone is working together on his or her separate parts and receiving feedback from everyone. On the other hand, everyone could be working on their separate parts, but are doing it for the sake of receiving a letter grade and not caring about whether its right or wrong. Breaking down everything in order to know right from wrong is pivotal anywhere. Feedback could also be misinterpreted as constructive criticism, but to achieve desired results for success, it is necessary to improve upon anything in order for our work to not go in vain and have meaning. If we don’t regard our own work, then we’re really improving or learning anything. It is important to understand the two because as soon as we graduate, we’ll be encountering these two.

                  In order for collaborative efforts to be successful, there are three things to consider. First off, achieving desires results or successful outcomes is important. Going back to the working on a group paper example, it’s important to highlight all the efforts together to evaluate how we think we did overall. Once the desires results come in, it weighs in if it paid off in the end.  Questions such as “Did we do it?” or “Was it a success?” are important to note because in accomplishing any goal or task, we’re measured by our performance to get the job done. When understanding that, we learn about our capabilities when working alongside others. With any team, it fluctuates based on multiple factors. Did the group work well together? Did we learn from experience as a whole? Did anyone overshadow the other in his or her workload? The emphasis is the team as a whole and how they work off each other. Their growth as a team/group is dependent on if they learned anything from one another and if they could utilize that when entering into the workforce. Lastly, success for any team or group has to have an experience worth noting. The work they’re doing must be engaging, exciting, and most of all feel important to make the entire process run smoothly and efficiently. Everyone’s collaborative efforts have to be taken into account as it builds satisfaction and fosters relationships. 

                  There are many reasons for people to collaborate, but there are four primary reasons: To become informed, make decisions, solve problems, and manage projects. It is important to be informed about why you’re collaborating in the first place. From then, you create a basis where you work to achieve a common goal as well as work off each other to better understand what is needed to get the work done correctly and efficiently. Communication is key in teamwork and in doing so, decisions can be made and issues can be addressed if need be. Decision-making isn’t always easy because we all have to understand our decisions/options and their impact on the overall process. There are three types of decisions: Operational, managerial, and strategic. All of these types of issues centers on if the information presented is considered structured or unstructured. When any decision is made, we have to be able to process our team members’ perspective/opinion on it and work together to achieve a mutual agreement. Once groups/teams make decisions, it’s important to issue any problems/issues that could arise. For example, there could be problems formulating from the formatting of a NBA player roster ~ who is the point guard, center, and defensive guard? In resolving any problems or issues, it’s best to implement these steps: Define what the problem is, Identify alternative solutions, Specify evaluation criteria, Evaluate those alternatives, Select an alternative, and finally implement a solution to the problem.

                  There are 4 reasons to collaborate followed by 3 things to consider when working in teams/groups, but there is also a certain process that goes into how everything mends together. These processes can be defined phases and it begins with the starting phase and ends with the finalization phase. Starting phase deals with setting up team authority (Who is the leader), specifying roles amongst team members, identifying roles and responsibilities, and most importantly discussing the scope of what is needed to be accomplished. After setting up the team and identifying everything needed to be addressed, the next phase is the planning process. Planning requires a group/team determining the tasks and assigning them, create a set schedule, and revising anything so that everything fits. The Doing phase is all about performance, management, analysis, and overseeing progress of the entire scope. Lastly, the Finalizing phase deals with completion, preparing documentation, and the team disbanding afterwards because the goals have been achieved. All of the reasons and drives behind why collaboration is important are contingent on the definition of a collaboration information system.  A collaboration system is an information system that supports the idea of collaboration. There are five components of an information system for collaborating: Hardware, Software, Data, Procedures, and People. This is the five-component framework and it is applied in just about everything ~ a process that is clearly shows all inputs and outputs and how they all interconnect.

                  Communication is pivotal in collaboration. Before the work can begin or responsibilities assigned, it’s important to note that if there’s no voice of direction, then there’s no purpose. It’s important to communicate to reach out and address skills and tasks needed in order for collaboration to work. There are two communication types: Synchronous and Asynchronous. Synchronous deals with interaction at the same time whereas with asynchronous, interaction not at the same time. An example if a video conference call would be considered synchronous and a text message would be asynchronous. In order for collaboration to take place and for others to work off each other, communication is key in order for the process to get started and running.