Read the following Journals and combine the five meeting together as an experience of learning for creating effective teams & partnerships do not change the information but you can involve some information about teamwork and team building that could support some situations.

Journaling Article (1)

06/18/2015

The team was selected randomly and we were eight students from different back ground and knowledge. The task was to write a syllabus for the course and we only had 30 minutes to do it. Nobody has an experience like this and most of the team members have not spoken together before. Since we sat, there wasn’t a communicating with each others. The task wasn’t clear if this class activity or our project and we will continue working together in the future or not. Because nobody spoke up for about 30 seconds, I took the lead and talked about some ideas that could help us and I started to ask some members that I knew about their opining. After 10 minutes we started to write the course objective and one of the members wrote an outline for the syllabus and that helped us to continue working. Another provided his iPad to look at some information he found. Within 30 minutes we had exchanged some ideas from most of the team members and we wrote course objective, course description and 10 topics to be an outline for each class. After we knew this our project for the class, we exchanged our emails and all the members opened up and we started to communicate by emails about this project. I have seen the first two Tuckman's Stages of Group Development occurred in the first meeting.

Journaling Article (2)

06/18/2015

I had a great experience with Spaghetti and Marshmallows team building exercise because we were about to lose and we worked hard together and I helped with the base and the most important thing was that when I came with the idea of putting one spaghetti in the end and I put it by my hand that was amazing felling and I really saw how the team was working together in effective way.

Second meeting was more organize because everyone came with idea and there were two new active members and they like to work and help. We discussed some ideas and we agreed to come with first draft within two weeks and we created a sharing document through Google Docs so everyone can add their work. I hope everyone participate and have the responsibility to follow the plan and add some value to the project. Another thing is that the team agreed to present our project on July 16th and that showed me the team cooperation and how that is important for any team work.

Journaling Article (3)

07/02/2015

Candace did our time schedule a week ago because last time we spoke together and I told her to be the leader and go ahead and sign everyone part so the work would be more efficient and she broke the project down to 10 different sections with the member names, so everyone can work on their own part. We were communicating via email and sharing some documents and ideas Another positive thing is that Masa wrote agenda for this meet to be more meaningful. The Third meeting started with the agenda that included six points:

1) Who is our team leader?

2) Confirm and adjust each roles and tasks

3) Confirm the updated schedule; include some details, towards our presentation on7/16.

4) Discuss course topics to decide 8 topics.

5) Brainstorm and discuss each topics detail.

6) Discuss another details of our syllabus.

Now it is clear for everyone that we need a leader and regarding to what Candace did most of the team agreed to be the leader. Now everyone has clear task to do and knows their responsibility. It also obvious to me what strengths and weaknesses are for each member and that very good for the team. We started to work one to one to help each others. Everyone put his/her effort to make this work and we trust each other’s and that help individual in the team becomes stronger, because he or she is part of an effective, cohesive team. When people trust one another, the team can achieve truly meaningful goals.

Regarding to the five stage of team development, we are in the end of the stage three Norming and in the begging of stage four. I am happy to work with this team and I hope we deliver the beast work we can.

Journaling Article (4)

07/06/2015

The meeting went so well, we started with the agenda that Masa did. Everyone finished their part and we are almost done with the syllabus. We discussed some new ideas and we talked about the presentation way. My idea was that three people present with PowerPoint but no one agreed with me. There idea was to print the syllabus for everyone and only one person present the whole syllabus. They said “we can’t add much information or explain more because we present the syllabus and each one will have a copy so that useful for the audience.” By the end, I agreed because no one supported me and there way could be work.

My experience about the two Trust exercises was an amazing. There were very useful to know each other’s more and build confident, trust and resolve conflicts among the team members. It was good to know you strongest from the team members and also people need to be appreciated about their contributions and how their efforts help the team. These things help the person to do more for the team and make the team work more efficient in this stage of performing.

Journaling Article (5)

07/10/2015

The fifth meeting was a good for me because we achieved what we wanted to do. Everyone finished their part three days ago and Candace did a great job put together the syllabus. She sent an email to us and asked to review it or at least bring it with to the class either print it out or just have it on our phone because we will go through it together and finalize it in the next meeting. I printed the syllabus and I did some edited to speak about it in the meeting. The meeting started to discuss the two questions about the team mission and current goals and I realized how important to set up a mission and goal. We should have done these in the begging. Each team member knows the overall goal but the way we were working together that could be more effective if we agreed on the team mission. Most of the team members focused of doing their part and did not care about others work or how the final project should be. Without a clear mission, individuals can too easily pursue their own agendas independently of, and sometimes irrespective of, the overarching goal. Before the break time some members went out of the class and we continued working on the syllabus and after the break some of the team members said we didn’t have an agenda for today and we did not do any team work. I just wanted to ask them, did you read that email or the syllabus. Did you plan to say or add any useful idea for the team work? I believe that related to their personality. However, each one of the team did their part on time and we were done of the work as our timeline. About the presentation, we agreed Andrea to present our syllabus to the class without power point because she suggested printing the syllabus for everyone. She will pretend being the teacher and explain the syllabus to the class!

My whole experience was fantastic because our team members were very stranger for each others in the beginning and by the time we worked together as a team. The process of the team and the dynamic was very effective and worked very well to achieve the goal. Also, writing the gouraling article after each meeting was very helpful that going back and thinking about what happened in the last meeting and how the team moved from stage to stage to achieve the goal. This experience definitely has prepared me to be able to creating effective teams & partnerships at business professional field.