Week 4: Teamwork & Problem Statement

Table of Contents:

Engage: Time Well Spent?
Einstein Quote
As the cartoon to the left shows, Einstein is reported to have said, ‘If I had an hour to solve a problem I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.’

Questions to think about:

  1. How do you feel about this quote?
  2. Can you think of an example when this approach would have saved you time and resources?

1. Image Reference

Use the cell below to write your response to these questions

Explore: Great Teams & Drafting a problem statement

In this explore section, you will delve into teamwork and formulating a problem statement.

This should be more of a review for you but it is good exercise since now we will be working on virtual teams and a new epic challenge. The following steps will guide you through the exploration of these two important topics.

Teamwork

  1. Read & take notes on: More Diverse Personalities Mean More Successful Teams (ASME)
  2. Do the Explore Your Personality activity
  3. Read & take notes on: Working in a Virtual Team (MindTools)
  4. Watch & take notes on: Working in Virtual Teams (YouTube)
  5. Watch & take notes on Great Groups Lecture given by Dr. Camarda in 2013

Problem Statement

  1. Watch & take notes on the following:

Use the cell below to post your notes.

Explain: Online Class Session

In this part of the lesson, you will participate in an online session with your teacher.

Toaster

For the meeting, you will need:

  • Pen or pencil
  • paper

Online Zoom Session with teacher:

  • Draw Toast Activity
  • Problem Statement discussion
  • Establishing a virtual team discussion

In the cell below, post what you thought about these activities.

Apply: ‘Who Am I’ & Problem Statement

In this apply section, you will be taking what you learned in the explore section and act on it.

We have a problem
  1. After reviewing your personality report which was emailed to you after you completed the Explore Your Personality activity, reflect on that report and create a ‘Who am I’ Chart based on that reflection.
  2. Watch straight to the point: what is 5W2H and apply what you learned about problem statements to create your own problem statement in the 5W2H Problem Statement Activity.

In this cell, paste links to your work.

Community of Practice

Now that you have a working problem statement we want you to post it to the appropriate Community of Practice (CoP) on Slack.

You will work within that CoP and engage in discussion with the members of that community to further refine and settle on the best problem statement you can devise at this point.

Steps: 1. Log into the Epic Education Foundation’s Slack. 2. Post your problem statement in the appropriate CoP Slack channel. The network of CoPs are found in the [Community of Practice Cmap.](https://cmapscloud.ihmc.us/viewer/cmap/1VMVC6GHS-1GKCLQ0-FS6) 3. Reply to at least 2 other participants' problem definitions. To do this, hover over the post of interest and click on the comment bubble in the toolbar that pops up. Then comment. 4. Join with others to form a team. Once you have a team, [create a Slack Channel](https://slack.com/help/articles/201402297-Create-a-channel) for your team and invite your teacher to join the channel. 5. Post your Who Am I chart in the TEAM channel. 6. As a group fill out the team organization map. 7. As a group come up with a single problem statement.

Team


In the cell below, provide a screenshot of your entry and a screenshot of the comments you made and the agreed upon problem statement.

Reflect:

Write a paragraph (4-5 sentences) reflection on this assignment. Some suggested questions to address:

  • What was the toughest part?
  • What was the most important thing I learned?
  • In what direction, would I like to continue on this project?

Write your notes in the cell below.

Expand: People & Their Connections

Fun Teamwork Activity - Spreadsheet Pixel Art

While most virtual teams are intimately familiar with Google Sheets, relatively few think of them as remote employee engagement activities. If you are a nerd like me then you likely enjoy developing complicated spreadsheet formulas and graphs.

Spreadsheet Unicorn

Essentially, Spreadsheet Pixel Art is when you add a little code to Sheets that will automatically replace numbers with a color fill for that cell. You can then use these colored cells to “paint the numbers” and create pictures of animals, landscapes and similar. For virtual team building activities, you can do a short-term or long-term competition to see who on your remote team produces the best work of art.

Use this template to make your own Spreadsheet Pixel Art. Then post it in YOUR TEAM channel.

Write your notes in the cell below.