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GROUP DYNAMICS

Sus Lundgren

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Why this lecture?• Generations(!) of MDI/ID-students have

requested it

• Even if most of you’ve already worked in groups at the uni……most of you were in very homogenous

groups

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The life of a group: six stages

• 1) Initial stage– Insecurity, curiosity, showing off

• 2) The honeymoon– Intense communication and bonding

• 3) The ”we”-stage– Roles and means of communication are

being established

– In groups with more than seven members, sub groups emerge

– Diversity is seen as a strength

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The life of a group: six stages

• 4) Conflict stage– Irritation, less praise, aggression, envy

– Diversities are annoying

– Group pressure builds up

• 5) Plateau stage– Fatigue, resignation

• 6) The effective stage– Unity, everyone working well towards the

same target

– Tranquility, pleasure in one’s work, satisfaction

– Remains until conditions change…

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One aspect of roles…• Members of a group have task-related roles

– System architecturer

– Programmer

– Database programmer

– Designers• Interaction designers

• Graphic designers

– Project leader

– Technical Project Leader

– Technical writer

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Another aspect of roles• Members of a group also have roles related

to “behaviour”/personality

• There are various theories on how to describe personalities…– Cattell Personality Inventory (16 PF), pairs

of attributes (intovert-extrovert, submissive-detemined, exact-creative etc.)

– Belbin

• … and numerous tests

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Belbin’s team roles• Meredith Belbin and his colleagues have spent

years studying team work in an experimental environment

• They have defined eight team roles– Coordinator (calm, confident, controlled)

– Plant (creative, unorthodox, non-practical)

– Implementer (conservative, dutiful)

– Shaper (extrovert, dynamic, pushing, provoking)

– Monitor/Evaluator (analytic, strategic, dry)

– Team worker (sensitive, mild, indecisive, caring)

– Resource Investigator (curious, communicative)

– Completer-Finisher (thorough, perfectionist, anxiuos )

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Team roles &teams• Each of us have a primary and a secondary

role, etc.

• Well-working teams consist of people with many different roles– One- or two-role teams are hardly ever

functional

• A person sometimes acts as his or her secondary team role, if it is missing in the group– If the team is smaller than eight, some

members may act out both their primary and secondary roles

• The ideal team size seems to be 4-6 people

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Reality, part 1

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Reality, part 2

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Reality, part 3

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Easy reading• Meredith Belbin: Management Teams - så

skapas framgångsrika team– Management Teams: Why they succeed or

fail

• Meredith Belbin: Teamroller i praktiken– Team Roles at Work

• Ann & Marianne Fredriksson: De elva sammansvurna

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About you…• 56 students

– Graphical designers 19

– Writers 20

– Programmers 14

• Lots of knowledge in the most diverse areas!

• Stuff you have to deal with– Level of ambition

– Ways of working

– Keeping your known roles (programmer etc) or switching and learning from another