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GROUP DYNAMICS & PROJECT

MANAGEMENTSus 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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The Industrial Project• Unfortunately there’s a widespread distrust

between programmers and designers, leading to numerous conflicts

• Obvious reasons are– Time planning: designers are normally

busy during the beginning of the project, programmers in the end

– The client: There are always misunder-standings leading to redesign new code

– User tests: These also cause redesign and might annoy not only the programmers…

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The Industrial Project• Inner reasons

– Lack of understanding of the problems and possibilities within the ”other” discipline

– View on design: For the designer it lives and changes due to changed requirements, it is never really ”finished”. For the programmer it’s much easier if the design is set from the beginning

• Programmer: You’re irresolute, changing stuff all the time, whereas I’m the one making the important job!

• Designer: If the user can’t understand the system it doesn’t matter how genial the code is, you arrogant #@%¤#!!!

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Tensions

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What can be done?• The groups must get an understanding of

each others disciplines

• The entire group should take part in the initial system design meetings

• Let programmers take part as observers during user tests

• Let the entire group sit in the same room, if possible– More and better communication, ”cross

fertilization of ideas”

• Make early user tests to minimize last-minute redesigns

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About you…• You have different competences

– Graphical designers

– Writers

– Programmers

• Different areas of knowledge different views & different wor(l)ds

• More…– Different levels of ambition

– Different ways of working

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

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Stuck in The Middle

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The Project leader• The project leader serves as an interface

and sometimes a filter between– the members of the group (or the groups in

the group!)

– The customer

– The own company

– Other companies or people involved in the project

• The project leader needs to– Keep everyone reasonably happy ==

compromise

– Make sure the project is done on time within budget lots of administrative work

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The Project leader• The project leader needs to be

– Sensitive

– Rather calm

– Self confident

– Tough-stomached

• The project leader needs to have– Good communication skills

– Good negotiation skills

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Project management 1a• List all activities you can think of

– Make time estimate

• Divide them into groups– Time based (e.g. ”preparations”)

– Skill based (e.g. ”database programming”)

• Assign people to tasks

• Make a time line– Leave slack!

• Try to foresee problems; can you plan to avoid them?– Fear of computer breakdowns daily

backups to server

• Have frequent check-up meetings

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Let’s manage a party!• List activities

• Divide them into groups– Time based (e.g.

”preparations”)

– Skill based (e.g. ”database programming”)

• Assign people to tasks

• Make a time line

• Try to foresee problems

• Check-ups?

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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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Zookeeper: Homework

• How many sounds are there in Zookeeper’s game mode?– Do you think the sound feedback matters?

Why? Why not?

– Which one sound do you think is the most important one?

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Zookeeper Sounds

• Marking

• Shifting places

• Scoring

• Cumulative scoring

• All-of-a-kind scoring

• Angry animal

• No more move

• Running out of time

• Level done

• Level up

• Animals fall down onto new level

• Game over – animals run away

• Mouse-over options

• Pause (actually the same as ”angry animal” – late fix?

• Background music

• I found some 15