Deck 7: Facilitating Team Processes

Question 1

The evaluate and choose stage of the problem solving process requires ___ thinking.

Answer 1

convergent

Question 2

When a team leader hears about the nominal group technique, group brainstorming, and the affinity technique she says, "I have enough trouble just getting team members to sit through a regular meeting. They'd rebel if I tried to make them use those sorts of things." How might you respond?

Answer 2

You know that people are typically open to trying such techniques, especially when they see how well they work. As discussed in this chapter, it is important when introducing new techniques that the team leader show confidence in their application, explain their benefits, and treat their use as a skill-building exercise. In particular;
1) just do it, and do it enthusiastically and confidently;
2) explain why you're doing something different and how each technique is tailored to the task at hand;
3) point out that these are widely used and effective, used by companies such as IBM, American Express, Xerox, and Adaptec;
4) treat this as a skill-building exercise both for yourselves and for your colleagues;
5) point out that mastering more group tools adds to the team's resources.

Question 3

A team member says, "Our company really needs to stop throwing good money after bad. We keep projects going that are clearly doomed and just swallow our resources. It's clearly irrational. It's stupid." How might you respond to him about reasons escalation of commitment occurs?

Answer 3

There are certainly many reasons for escalation of commitment. One problem, of course, is that, as noted by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, every major project looks like a failure in the middle. As such, people may simply believe that things will improve, that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And, of course, it's easy to "see" in hindsight that a failed project was doomed; this is caused in part by hindsight bias. However, we are often unable to ignore sunk costs, the resources that have already been expended. We ask, "How can we end this project after we've spent millions on it?" Or, "How can we end this war after so many lives have been lost?" Further, as long as the project isn't cancelled nobody has to admit failure; people may hope they'll be transferred or promoted, find a new job, or retire before the project ultimate failure. There are also social rewards for persistence; we tend to admire people who stick to their guns in the face of opposition and bleak odds. Still, it is important to "know when to fold 'em." That is why it is important before and during a project to follow good guidelines to minimize escalation of commitment.

Question 4

You mention to your boss that you have learned what you think are very useful guidelines for defining a problem. She answers, ""Defining a problem! I know what my problems are. I need solutions!"" How would you defend the need for careful problem definition?

Question 5

Provide seven guidelines a team leader can use to provide structure during team meetings.

Question 6

Define the four zones of personal space.

Question 7

Provide four guidelines team leaders can use to provide structure after a team meeting.

Question 8

List and briefly discuss the steps in the PDCA Model.

Question 9

Provide six guidelines for writing a good problem statement.

Question 10

Provide six guidelines to minimize the dangers of inappropriate escalation of commitment.

Question 11

The ___ process refers to asking team members to give their comments in turn.

Question 12

The ___ refers to an individual or group given the responsibility for challenging a proposal.

Question 13

When we get new information we tend to revise our prior estimates less than we should. This is called ___ in information processing.

Question 14

When leaders enter a room they tend to choose a position that gives them a lot of potential ___ with others.

Question 15

___ exercises might involve stories, exercises, or jokes to help overcome initial discomfort in teams.

Question 16

A group in name only is called a coacting or ___ group.

Question 17

___ brings fresh approaches by turning the problem around. How could we stifle creativity? How could we decrease morale? How could we lower creativity?

Question 18

___ is the tendency to see relationships between variables that do not in fact exist.

Question 19

With ___ each alternative is identified as satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Question 20

Together, the first three stages of the problem-solving process are called ___.

Question 21

___ is sometimes called "Monday morning quarterbacking."

Question 22

___ planning is the process of developing alternative courses of action that can be followed if a decision, perhaps because of unexpected events, does not work out as planned.

Question 23

What are the four rules for group brainstorming?

Question 24

Identify four things the nominal group technique seeks to do.

Question 25

Indicate five benefits of silent generation of ideas in writing without interaction.

Question 26

Stopping rules are used to decide when to finish using the nominal group technique.

Question 27

The zone of personal space beyond the range of comfortable interaction is the public zone.

Question 28

The first step of the problem solving process is to identify alternative solutions to the problems.

Question 29

People from northern Europe see those from southern Europe as "distant."

Question 30

The tendency to seek, interpret, and recall information in ways that support our preconceptions is called confirmation bias.

Question 31

The nominal group technique gets its name from the fact that it relies solely on nominal (coacting) groups for each of its stages.

Question 32

The "Teams in the News" example regarding the International Space Station was used to illustrate cultural differences in how team members get acquainted.

Question 33

Individuals expecting to coact tend to sit distant opposite at a conference table.

Question 34

The social zone is the zone of personal space used for most impersonal business.

Question 35

If not properly used devil's advocates can lead to generation of "safe" proposals.

Question 36

At the identify alternative solutions stage of the problem solving process, divergent thinking is needed.

Question 37

The technique that enhances creativity by requiring a team to systematically generate potential solutions to a problem, cluster them in terms of their similarities, name the clusters, and vote to identify which ideas should be given the highest priority is called the:

A)nominal group technique
B)delphi process
C)factoring technique
D)affinity technique
E)None of the above

Question 38

The final stage of the problem-solving process is:

A)redefine the problem
B)monitor and control decision outcomes
C)externalize any deviations from desired outcomes
D)make necessary resources available
E)implement the decision

Question 39

The alternative generation phase of the problem-solving process requires:

A)divergent thinking
B)convergent thinking
C)illusory correlation
D)reactive framing
E)None of the above

Question 40

People react differently to a five cents a gallon higher price for a credit card purchase than for a cash payment if it is framed as a cash discount rather than as a credit card surcharge. This shows they are subject to:

A)contrast effects
B)framing effects
C)confirmation bias
D)cash reversal bias
E)None of the above

Question 41

Rosabeth Moss Kanter said every major project looks like which of the following in the middle?

A)Blue skies
B)A failure
C)Too good to be true
D)Promising
E)None of the above

Question 42

Which of the following refers to cases in which people's subjective confidence in their judgments is greater than their objective accuracy?

A)Overconfidence bias
B)Illusory correlation
C)Framing effect
D)Hindsight bias
E)None of the above

Question 43

People expecting to engage in casual conversation tend to sit in which seating arrangement at a conference table?

A)Side by side
B)Corner to corner
C)Face to face
D)Distant opposite
E)None of the above

Question 44

IBM uses which of the following to bring together more than 100,000 of its employees?

A)The nominal group technique
B)The delphi process
C)Innovation Jams
D)Robots
E)Holograms

Question 45

As discussed in a "Teams in the News" box in this chapter, what does Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote, use to keep in touch with his employees when he's out of the office?

A)Daily phone calls
B)His Apple watch
C)A hologram
D)None of the above
E)A robot

Question 46

Which of the following special-purpose team techniques is specifically designed to encourage healthy dissent?

A)Structured disapprobation
B)The affinity technique
C)The nominal group technique
D)Convergent thinking
E)The devil's advocate

Question 47

One rule of group brainstorming is "Try to combine and improve."