Rateb Afyouni - Tuckman Model - Decision Making Process - Report Writing Assessment Answer
Assessment Task:

Executive Summary
The first section of the report discusses team formation, challenges in establishing communication between all team members, an outline of the framework model followed and the team’s progression through the stages of the model. The second discusses research relating to student engagement and recommended strategies for increasing student engagement in online MBA subjects. Our team consists of Rateb Afyouni, Carolina Gonzalez, Krishna Maharjan, Krish, Chioma Okoye who
were selected as maximum diversity in areas such as gender, experience and location. The team connected initially via the Discussion Forum, then communicated by student email while utilising the file exchange to share material. In the Forming stage, we suffered initial issues with technology and the lack of communication from a 5th team member. Issues with technology had a negative impact, which we have identified later as a critical factor in the proposed recommendations. During the storming stage, the team elected to utilise the Tuckman model as well as decisions on document sharing, task delegation and leadership. The team quickly transitioned to the Performing stage to contribute toward the team deliverables. The team identified areas of focus including discussions to obtain consensus, and then the team collected and shared data to determine the recommendation. The team created a framework that built trust ensuring all team members were encouraged to contribute.
The team discussed that subjects undertaken had good levels of engagement on the forums through assessed discussion activities, however had poor engagement during the collaborate sessions. We agreed this subject has experienced limited engagement in forums due to limited structured activities, however significant amounts of self-directed readings mean the engagement is less visible. Giving credit for participating in online discussions could stimulate students to become more engaged in activities and maintain their class participation. Forms of assessment could include group projects, case study analysis, journals or threaded discussion participation.
The consensus of the team was that online learning is undertaken for convenience and the ability to engage at the optimal time for the individual. The issues experienced regarding access to readings and learning portals as well as the quality of collaborate sessions had all impacted on their own personal levels of engagement. The team recommends that technical simplicity be central to the design of online content to ensure it is easily accessible to all. To further understand student engagement levels, the team recommends the use of an engagement survey to provide a statistical basis to support the proposed problem. This will determine the areas of focus to further increase the levels of engagement as required. A high response rate is critical to ensure its effectiveness as an analysis tool so participants will need to feel that their feedback provides a meaningful contribution.

 

Introduction
There are two parts to the report, the first discusses the formation of the team, the challenges experienced in establishing effective communication between all team members, outline of the framework model followed and discussion of the team’s progression through the stages of the model. The second task discusses research relating to student engagement and recommended strategies for increasing student engagement for online subjects offered by Chifley Business School. Our team for the Decision Application Team Assessment consists of Rateb Afyouni, Carolina Gonzalez, Krishna Maharjan, Chioma Okoye, Alx. Below is a brief introduction of each member:

- Rateb Afyouni is originally from Lebanon before moving to Australia at the beginning of 2018.
 

Rateb is currently employed as a Project manager and holds a Masters in Architecture.

- Carolina Gonzalez.
- Krishna Maharjan.
- Chioma Okoye.
- Alx.
The team was selected for maximum diversity in areas such as gender, experience and location. The team connected initially via the Discussion Forum, initiated by Rateb, and then have maintained communication through Torrens University student email while also utilising the file exchange on Blackboard to collaborate and share material. As the framework to form the team we decided to utilise Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 Stages of Team Development Model, which was later revised in 1977, to make the decision on providing a decision on strategic direction to increase student engagement in online MBA subjects. As a team we believe through following the process of the Tuckman Model and utilising the most appropriate communication channel we have been able to form an effective team in a short period
of time to make an effective decision.

Decision Making Process
For team orientation and facilitation, for understanding who we are, what we are trying to achieve and how we could delegate tasks and deliver our objectives; Tuckman model has been one of the commonly and effective cited paradigm of team development (Cissna, 1984). Miller (1993) have announced that Tuckman’s model has been the most widely referred and recognised paradigm in organisational literature.
Furthermore, this model explains the importance of establishing teams in the workplace and limit the lack of viable research. It describes new ways for people to know how to work together, helping them understand the development process and provide a way to predict the rational phases of growth in teams. This model materialised a common language to facilitate discussion and exploring team dynamics (Rickards & Moger, 2000). Tuckman’s labels of team development were established by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. After monitoring the manners of teams in the workplace, he announced that all teams require to pass through every stage for maximising effectiveness. The four commonly used labels for this model are: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing (Adjourning was later added by Tuckman and Jensen in
1977) (Staggers, et al., 2008). A summary of the stages and the model is show below in Figure 1 (Bonebright, 2010) with the Adjourning stage not shown.

We agreed in the Forming stage we suffered some initial issues with technology and the use of the tools provided, as not all members were monitoring the team discussion forum. Once a team member took initiative and sent a team email the team began to form more effectively. As a result of the email, the primary form of communication was determined to be via this channel by the three initial communicating members. It was found that one of the other team members email address
was not configured correctly, and as a result was not receiving communications from the rest of the team. This was resolved by moving to an alternate email address while the technological issue was resolved. A final initial team member did not respond by the cut-off date, and as such the team was reduced to four. Issues with technology in this instance had a negative impact on the ‘Forming’ phase of the team, which we have identified later in this paper as a critical factor in the proposed recommendations.

After discussion regarding approaches and objectives as part of the Storming stage, the team elected to utilise the Tuckman model as described by Bonebright (2010). There was some discussion that the team should look further than the assignment suggested Tuckman and Drexler Sibbet models with Bernstein and Lowy model (Bussman, 2014) and the Punctuated Equalibrium Model (Gersick, 1991) also considered. The use of the file exchange for attachments was also agreed at this stage. As the team continued to communicate, the imperative of a deliverable drawing near led to further action including nominations for more defined roles and accountabilities. These roles included Task 1 lead, Task 2 lead and final editing. Those able to communicate by email accepted the suggested roles. Transitioning from individual work to an effective virtual team requires a series of communication, structural and process elements to occur (Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000), which was the
experience of our team. Through the assigning of roles, the framework for contributing was established, which according to Sunstein & Hastie (2014) is one of the crucial elements in forming a team to effectively aggregate information and undertake critical thinking. With all team members now in communication, the team sprang into action and transitioned to the Performing stage to contribute toward the team deliverables as agreed. Once the initial issues were resolved, the team progressed very quickly through the stages of the Tuckman model to make an effective decision.

Adjourning is the additional stage, relating to the implementation of the team plan and termination of task behaviours. Essentially, the breakup of the team when the task is achieved so everyone can move on to new goals (Staggers et al, 2008). In the instance of our team, it will be the completion of the assessment, and is therefore not included in the reflection for this report. In reflecting upon the models used for the decision-making process, the team agreed we used a morem incremental model (Fox, 2015), as decision making was made primarily through smaller decisions about each component of the assignment and the structure of the team. The team identified an
area to focus on, which was then discussed and a final outcome agreed before moving onto the next component. We found this worked well for the structure of the assignment and the incremental nature of the decision.

In the making of the decision, we firstly discussed the actual problem that was being presented to obtain consensus regarding the areas of focus, the team then collected and shared data to discuss various viewpoints to determine the final recommendation. Through this process the team used a consultative approach to ensure there was agreement and a congruent framing of the problem to avoid progressing in conflicted directions, which would have impacted on the team’s ability to make
a ‘good decision’ (Levin et al, 1998). Essentially, the team moved through the same stages of decision making that were experienced in the individual assignments, however, we concurred the input phase regarding agreement on framing, model selection and collaboration methods was the most critical to ensure success of the latter stages. Further, the team created a framework that built trust and supported ‘prime critical thinking’ (Sunstein & Hastie, 2014) ensuring all team members
were able to contribute and be encouraged to disclose information.

Prior to commencing discussion on Task 2, our team wanted to identify an absolute problem to support the recommendations. However, without the availability of data regarding current and past engagement levels we felt it was difficult to determine the specific problem to meet the requirements for Chifley Business School/Torrens University MBA programme. The use of data to enable reflection before making decisions is good practice when focussing on goals for improvements to education and supporting learning facilitators (Datnow & Park, 2015). We agreed the alignment of results to levels of interaction would increase engagement in the forums, however,did not feel this would provide the optimal learning outcomes of why individuals were undertaking an MBA. Upon reviewing the materials exchanged and further discussion amongst the team, it was determined to develop a recommendation based on best-practice with the focus on maintaining flexibility while optimising interaction quality.

 

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