Contract template to use:
To prepare you for the kind of teamwork you will likely do in the business world, you will be grouped into teams of 2-4 people. Your team will work together to complete collaborative projects this semester.
Your team contract template is divided into four major sections:
Since the basic purpose of this team contract is to accelerate your team's development, to increase individual accountability for team tasks, and to reduce the possibility for team conflict, make your contract as specific as possible. You are even asked to create a preliminary task list for the projects you will do with your team, specifying the person responsible for each task.
Use the Team Contract template to discuss and finalize your team roles, procedures, and standards. Complete, sign, and submit a copy of your finalized contract to me in Blackboard.
Once your team contract has been developed, your team is ready to begin work on collaborative assignments. However, you may soon find that your team is not working as well as you had hoped. This is normal but needs to be attended to immediately. Perhaps your team is simply not following the established contract procedures or roles as strictly as you ought, or perhaps you need to change some of the procedures or roles as outlined in your contract. Call a team meeting immediately to discuss and resolve the challenges your team is facing; do not delay. Seek guidance from me as you see fit to resolve any conflicts so that you will have the most positive team experience possible.
According to concepts from organizational psychology, there are five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. During the forming stage, teams tend to communicate in indirect polite ways rather than more directly. The storming stage, characterized by conflict, can be often be productive, but may consume excessive amounts of time and energy. In this stage, it is important to listen well to each other to identify differing expectations. Next, during the norming stage, teams formulate roles and standards, increasing trust and communication. This norming stage is characterized by agreement on procedures, reduction in role ambiguity, and increased “we-ness” or unity. These developments generally are precursors to the performing stage, during which teams achieve their goals, are highly task oriented, and focus on performance and production. When the task has been completed, the team adjourns.
To accelerate a team’s development, a team contract is generated to establish procedures and roles to move the team more quickly into the performing stage. This process of generating a team contract can actually help jump-start a group's collaborative efforts by immediately focusing the team members on a definite task. The group members must communicate and negotiate to identify the quality of work they all wish to achieve as well as the level of group participation and individual accountability they all feel comfortable with.
Successful team performance depends on personal accountability. In a team environment, individuals are usually effectively motivated to maximize their own rewards and minimize their own costs. However, conflicts can arise when individualistic motives or behaviors disrupt team-oriented goals. For example, conflict can stem from an unequal division of resources or assigned duties. When team members believe they are receiving too little for what they are giving, they sometimes reduce their effort and turn in work of lower quality. Such "free riding" occurs most frequently when individual contributions are combined into a single product or performance, and individual effort is perceived as unequal. At this point, some individual team members may take on extra responsibilities while other team members may reduce their own efforts or withdraw from the team completely. These behaviors may engender anger, frustration, or isolation—resulting in a dysfunctional team and poor quality of work. However, with a well-formulated team contract, such obstacles can often be avoided.