Team Debriefing Paper (apa)

Running head: TEAM DEBRIEFING

Learning Team Debriefing Paper

Joe Smith

University of Phoenix

Learning Team Debriefing Paper

During the last decade of the Twentieth Century, nearly every company in North America caught the team bug. If the hype was to be believed, workplace teams would solve virtually every corporate problem, ratchet up quality, increase productivity and profits, improve organizational culture, and cure the common cold. University Of Phoenix (2004)

Many colleges have started using teams for assignments and still other colleges assign teams throughout the entire degree program. In this paper, both the advantages and disadvantages will be discussed.

The advantages of using teams in college are many in number. Teams can get together and share their life experiences and use that knowledge to their groups favor and put that knowledge into an assignment. Theoretically it can also increase the quality of work produced. By individuals working together and looking over each other's contributions, you have more than one person doing the same project, from brainstorming to final proofreading. Possibly the biggest advantage of working in teams in college is it prepares a student for the ever increasing team concept in the American workplace.

Some may find the disadvantages may outweigh the advantages of teams in the college environment. Some disadvantages are the perception students may have that they are paying for their school, so why should they have to work in teams and possibly endanger their grade? Another disadvantage is students taking advantage of their team members by either not completing their portion or just doing the bare minimum.

This brings up the topic of conflict resolution. Team B was lucky in this aspect as there were no real conflicts to speak of. The charter spelled out the team's approach for conflict resolution. If there was a problem of any kind, the team would first talk to the problem member. Then, if that did not work, the team would have administration talk to the student, and still if no results, the team would have the member removed by administration.

Even with these rules in the charter, there were only a few problems. Many of these problems are not isolated in that this would be Team B's first class. At first, no team member would step up and take control. One team member got tired of waiting and became kind of a unofficial leader. The member took it upon himself to get all the required information, distribute it fairly, and set a deadline. This worked and was great for the team. However the member felt