Old Dominion University CS410 Team Black Feasibility Presentation

1. TPOT Team Project Organizational Tool Old Dominion University CS410 Team Black Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013

2. Team Black Mentor Dr. Pilar Pazos, Ph.D. mpazosla@odu.edu Thomas TJ Carson tcarson522@gmail.com Jose Brandariz jr.brandariz89@gmail.com Joe Elder jelde010@gmail.com Pernell Dixon pdixo005@odu.edu Josh Ward jward056@odu.edu Aaron Walden awald001@odu.edu CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

3. 3 Problem Statement • In an increasingly asynchronous educational environment, • the organization of geographically dispersed teams has • become a significant challenge. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

4. 4 Outline CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

5. 5 Case Study: Dr. Pazos’ Proposal Team Mentor • Research interests: • Knowledge management • Computer-mediated communication • Collaborative learning • Engineering education • Teams research: • Key factors contributing to teams’ effectiveness • Conflict management in virtual teams (VT) • Global virtual team management • Impacts of technology on virtual teams’ effectiveness • Virtual team training • Development of tools to support team collaboration Dr. Pilar Pazos Ph.D. Industrial Engineering Emphasis Engineering Mgmt Texas Tech University, 2005 Assistant Professor – ODU, Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

6. 6 Case Study: Dr. Pazos’ Proposal Managing Multiple Team Projects Instructors of online, project-based courses are regularly managing 15 or more teams. • With such numbers, it becomes difficult to: • Determine/track team status • Offer support/feedback • Assess deliverables Additionally, students have difficulties collaborating from dispersed locations. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

7. 7 Case Study: Dr. Pazos’ Proposal • Currently: • Organization left totally to instructors • No tool to aggregate team data • Mostly ad hoc solution: email, Blackboard, • Google sites, Smartsheet CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

8. 8 Instructor Process Flow: Team Status Determination CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

9. 9 Case Study: Dr. Pazos’ Proposal • Dr. Pazos’ proposed project: • Team collaboration software • Focus on the development of student teams • Instructor Dashboard • Monitor teams’ status • Receive deliverables • Provide Feedback CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

10. 10 What is a Virtual Team (VT)? According to an oft-cited 2009 literature review: Necessary Characteristics1 Other common characteristics2 • Geographical dispersion • Unification by a common purpose • Electronic communication • Cross-boundary collaboration • Impermanence • Small size • Knowledge workers • Inter-company Distance learning (DL) project teams satisfy 7 of these 8 1,2. Ebrahim et al. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

11. 11 Dispersed Student Teams Are VTs They satisfy all necessary characteristics: And most common characteristics: • Geographical dispersion – nature of DL • Common purpose – course project • Electronic communication – email, Blackboard • Cross-boundary collaboration – students have • diverse backgrounds, electives, minors • Impermanent – single course • Small size – typically under 7 • Knowledge workers – most degrees • in this domain Additionally, they will become the professional VTs of the future. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

12. 12 The Rise of VTs • 1980s: self-managing expert teams increasingly common3 • 1990s: self-managing team concept globalized4 • 2000s: cheap Internet facilitates connection of dispersed team • members—the virtual team proliferates5 • Currently, according to surveys: • 46% of companies employ virtual teams6 • 72% of employees’ work at least partially virtual7 • 61% of employees attribute 50% productivity to virtual teamwork8 • 6.7 million US college students (1/3) involved in virtual coursework9 6. “SHRM Survey Findings” 3,4,5. Ebrahim et al. 7,8. “Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams” 9. Allen and Seaman CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

13. 13 The Benefits of VTs Once again, according to Ebrahim and his colleague’s literature review: • Great flexibility • Reduced costs • Recruiting not limited by time/space (get best people) • Effective decision making (more time to stew) • Reduced time-to-market • Increased productivity • Reduced pollution CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

14. 14 Problem Characteristics • For virtual team members10: • Team member status difficult to determine • Trust takes longer to develop than in co-located team • Expectations often differ (roles, responsibilities) • Conflicts more difficult to resolve • Deliverable versions confusing • For instructors11: • Information gathering very time-consuming • Support less effective • Accountability assessment prone to error 11. Dr. Pazos Interview 10. Ebrahim et al. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

15. 15 Solution Statement Provide educationally-focused collaboration software which facilitates transparent, efficient virtual teamwork through the careful monitoring and presentation of data. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

16. 16 Solution Goals • Reduce instructor tedium • Reduce time required to trust team members • Provide concise team and team member status • Delineate roles and responsibilities (tasks) • Organize deliverables • Maximize ease of collaboration (accessibility) • When project “boils,” TPOT “whistles” CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

17. 17 Improved Instructor Process Flow: Team Status Determination Original: CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

18. 18 Major Components Diagram Oct 23, 2013 CS410 Feasibility Presentation ODU – Team Black

19. 19 Potential Benefits of TPOT • Decreased time needed to trust team members • Decreased time needed to determine status • Decreased time needed to gather deliverables • Increased accountability • Increased clarity of team status • Increased clarity of team member roles and • responsibilities • Maximized ease of collaboration CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

20. 20 Potential Drawbacks of TPOT • Accountability by activity tracking imperfect • Vulnerable to deception • Dashboard only works with our base page • Must abandon Google sites • May lack features of commercial competitors CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

21. 21 Competition Matrix Y N ? CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

22. 22 Summary and Conclusion • TPOT will: • Be web-based collaboration software • Be designed for mature college students and their instructors • Implement an aggregative Instructor Dashboard • Address the lack of information available to VTs • Hopefully be used by future CS410 students CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black

23. 23 References • Allen, I. Elaine and Jeff Seaman. Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education • in the United States. Babson Survey Research Group, 2013. • <http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/changingcourse.pdf>. • Bullock, Charles and Jennifer Klein. "Virtual Work Environments in the Post-Recession Era." • Brandman University, 2011. • <http://www.brandman.edu/files/attachments/virtual_teams_brandman_forrester_white_paper.pdf>. • Ebrahim, Nader Ale, ShamsuddinAhmed and ZahariTaha. “Virtual Teams: a Literature • Review.” Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, no. 3 (March 2009): 2653-2669. • Pazos, Pilar. Interview by Team Black. Personal interview. ODU, October 2013. • "SHRM Survey Findings: Virtual Teams." Society for Human Resources Management, 2012. • <http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Documents/Virtual%20Teams_FINAL.pptx>. • “The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams.” RW3 LLC, 2012. • <http://rw-3.com/VTSReportv7.pdf>. CS410 Feasibility Presentation Oct 23, 2013 ODU – Team Black