TECM 3200
Dr. Lam
 Text CHRISLAM138 to 22333
 Occurs when an individual exerts less effort working in a
team than if they would have worked by themselves.
 Large teams?
 Sort of…
 Lack of peer reviews?
 Just barely
 Randomly assigning teams?
 Not really
 All of these factors explain only 4.5% of the variation in social
loafing.
 About 20 peer-reviewed research studies on these factors alone
 Communication and team cohesion explain 53% of the
variance in social loafing
 With media choice…
 It may seem obvious to select a medium that matches your
synchronicity needs, but…
 98% of all student communication was through email (Lam,
2013)
 Media Synchronicity Theory (MST) (Dennis, et al., 2008)
synchronicity as a predictor of communication performance
 Synchronicity is defined as a “state in which individuals are
working together at the same time with a common focus.”
 MST focuses on the capability of media to support
synchronicity.
 Transmission velocity- How fast will the message get to the
receiver?
 Parallelism- How many transmissions can be sent
simultaneously?
 Symbol sets- what are the different ways of encoding a
message?
 Rehearsability – Can you edit or fine tune a message before
sending it?
 Reprocessability- Can you retrieve a message again in order to
process the information further?
 What is the transmission velocity of the following?
 Phone call?
 Face-to-face meeting?
 Text message?
 Chat or IM?
 Email?
 Discussion board post?
 There is no “best” medium
 Texting isn’t better than IM or email, for example
 Instead there is a “best fit” for certain situations
 This is especially important when you think about
communicating with your team members
 Remember, almost ALL students default to email. While email is a
great “fit” for some instances, it’s not for others
1.
Consider your feedback needs.
 Do you need immediate feedback?
 Can you wait to have a discussion?
2.
Consider the communication context.
 Is it new information that requires considerable discussion?
 Is it familiar information that requires less discussion?
3.
Consider social circumstances.
 Have you agreed upon using certain mediums for certain tasks?
 What is appropriate? (Is it 4am and a text would wake up your
teammate?)
1.
If you need Immediate Feedback, consider a synchronous
medium
 Text message
 IM/Chat
 Phone call
 Video conference
 Face-to-face meeting
 Other?
2.
If you don’t need immediate feedback, consider a less
synchronous medium
 Email message
 Social media message
 Discussion board posting
 Other?
What are the characteristics of the communication process?
 Is it new and complicated?
 Use a medium that allows you to have a detailed discussion (e.g., face-to-
face, video conference, IM)
 Is it familiar information?
 Use a medium that doesn’t require as much set up time (e.g., texting)
 Do you need to record the content for a later date?
 Use a medium that allows for recording (e.g., avoid phone or video
conference)
 Mixed situation?
 Consider multiple mediums. For example, send a text and then a follow-
up email.
 Have you agreed on a particular medium?
 If you’ve agreed to use gchat for group discussions, then use it.
However, you may have to use an additional medium that can notify
everyone to join gchat (like a text).
 What are the social norms?
 E.g., Is it appropriate to initiate a video chat at 2 AM?
 Consider synchronicity needs, communication process, and other
social factors.
 Scenario: It’s 6pm on Thursday afternoon. You won’t see your group
again until the next Monday. You want to make sure John is almost
done with the outline that is due on Monday.
Answer the following:
1.
Do you need (or want) immediate feedback?
2.
Is the information complicated or simple? Should it be saved or
recorded?
3.
Do you know what medium John prefers or will most likely use?
Based on those answers, what medium did you choose?
 Consider synchronicity needs, communication process, and other
social factors.
 Scenario: It’s 9pm on Sunday afternoon. You won’t see your group
until Monday. You want to contact John so that you can get the
outline and edit it before class Monday.
Answer the following:
1.
Do you need (or want) immediate feedback?
2.
Is the information complicated or simple? Should it be saved or
recorded?
3.
Do you know what medium John prefers or will most likely use?
Based on those answers, what medium did you choose?
 Consider synchronicity needs, communication process, and other
social factors.
 Scenario: It’s 1 hour after class just ended. You have met with your
group and divided all the work up until you meet again in two days.
You suddenly realized that no one has volunteered to complete the
audience analysis.
Answer the following:
1.
Do you need (or want) immediate feedback?
2.
Is the information complicated or simple? Should it be saved or
recorded?
3.
Do you know what medium John prefers or will most likely use?
Based on those answers, what medium did you choose?
 Consider synchronicity needs, communication process, and other
social factors.
 Scenario: Your final project is due Monday. It’s Sunday afternoon
and you need a group decision on the final report. Each team
member has a different section and you are in charge of putting all
of the sections into one single document.
Answer the following:
1.
Do you need (or want) immediate feedback?
2.
Is the information complicated or simple? Should it be saved or
recorded?
3.
Do you know what medium John prefers or will most likely use?
Based on those answers, what medium did you choose?
 It’s a tool for team communication
 Caveat: It won’t solve your team communication problems
 BUT, it does have capabilities of several mediums all-in-one
 Rehearsability – Write and edit messages before sending them
 Reprocessability – You can search and find all messages within
slack
 Slack shouldn’t be the only way your team communicates
 Face-to-face meetings are essential
 Phone call should still be used for urgent/time-sensitive messages
 Public #channels- These are topic-specific forums that
anyone on your team can participate in (note: whoever
creates the channel needs to invite the rest of the team)
 resumes
 pm-documents
 drafts
 final-deliverables
 Private Channels – Topic-specific forums that are between
only specified parties
 Direct messages – One-to-one communication between you
and another team member
 Provide us with a framework for team progress
 Is not absolute truth for all teams
 Help us make sense of team productivity and individual
behavior
Image from: http://www.mspguide.org/tool/tuckman
 Team Charter – Due Monday, March 28
 See course website for template
 Work Breakdown Structure and Project Schedule due Friday,
April 1