There are two deliverables for this assignment (Assignment 2)

• a team charter and
• an individual reflection paper (see last sections of this guide).

As you start your planning, aim to review designated discussion platform links with your team mates. These links can be found in the forum titled TEAM Management: TIPS. There is also a private link for only your team using your team name. It features a Status Report section. You are to provide a status report each time your team meets in a video session.

Team Charter

Working as a team, you will research elements for an effective team charter. Please use five (5) appropriate sources about team charters. Appropriate sources are scholarly or practitioner journals and book chapters published within the last 10 years.

The items below make up major sections of your teams charter. These sections should include:

1. A team mission and vision to build team identity You have a head start on identity-building in that you have spent time getting to know each other as well as determining a team name. Add to your team mission, vision and identity by describing them in the Team Charter document (Assignment 2).
2. A communications plan that centers on Communication Ground Rules This section is the base for accountability. Your team began this process, when you held your team session to ID, and then posted its ground rules to your teams private discussion link. Your ground rules might have included such ideas as parameters for communication (e.g., no phone calls after 9:00 p.m. EST); how frequently youll check in with each other; how your interactions (meeting agendas, notes about decisions) will be incorporated into your teams weekly status reports. Include your ground rules in this section of the team Charter. Your plan should also identify software technology being used to communicate, such as Zoom for weekly meetings, plus an app that allows you to quickly, informally circulate ideas (Instant messaging or email), and a commitment to posting Weekly Status Reports to a TEAM discussion link.
3. A work division plan - agree on how you will divide work, who will take on what role (will you have a coordinator (lead) or will leadership rotate?), expectations about quality and quantity of work. Setting expectations also add to accountability.

Aim to identify a team administrative role and a research topic for each team member. Examples of team roles include: reporter for weekly status reports, editor of paper or PPT, co-editor, facilitator of Zoom session set up, and other admin. roles if you wish. Research topics should include leadership, virtual team trends, inclusion practices and rituals, avoiding small group errors such as group think, among others. This plan should build upon/incorporate the ideas from assignment 4see section below for a list of Assignment 4 outcomes. In the work division plan, there should be a schedule for deliverables (sometimes called milestones) listing each team member, and her or his assigned roles and research, based on the case/Assignment 4.

4. A conflict management plan - discuss areas of potential conflict for your team; decide and document how you will deal with conflict and resolve disagreements. To write this section of the charter, there should be all-team discussion via a virtual meeting.

5. Also write 1-2 paragraphs in the Charter to describe the selection process and credentials of team members who take on the following roles: team lead, facilitator of meeting set up, reporter for status reports, editor or editors for the recommendations to Assignment 4 (case).

To finalize your Team Charter, there should be careful attention from all team members.

The TEAM Project: Outcomes Needed

Assignment 2 (this assignment) must also build upon key parts of Assignment 4, the case. Together Assignment 2 activities and Assignment 4 tasks make up your TEAM Project.

Below are important facts from the case (copied/pasted from Assignment 4 Guide)

The Case

Lauren is assigned team leader for a project that has the attention of senior company leaders. Because the project is important, and because Lauren is also new to team leadership, Laurens boss suggested that Lauren hire a set of experts (your team) to help her launch the team workget forming the team done so well that later, when demands are high, the team will hold trust to function effectively, and to solve unexpected problems, including conflicts. Your team of experts report to Laurenshe is your client.

Lauren reviews the profiles of the six (6) team members her boss gave her.

She is both intrigued and anxious when she sees that team members are geographically dispersed.

Where the Team Members are Located:

Lauren works in the Atlanta office. One team member is in India; another is in Germany; and the rest live in the United States, but in different time zones. Two staff members are in the eastern time zone (Virginia and North Carolina) and two staff members are in the central time zone (Texas and Louisiana).

Lauren has never managed a virtual team and is unsure what special skills it will take to be successful. She begins to wonder what competencies are necessary for virtual team leaders and members. She evaluate each members strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of working virtually. Lauren includes herself because she realizes she needs to evaluate her own strengths and weaknesses. At this point in the case, Lauren has reviewed the challenges and opportunities that could arise as she manages her virtual team. She has selected your team of HR experts to help her.

Analyzing the Case of Lauren and her team:

3 (three) Parts of the Case

Part 1: Important Case Background, including a chart or table

ID of challenges and opportunities available in the case. Laurens team is virtual, with 7 members in many places and a leader, who is new to team leadership

Part 2: A set of recommendations for Lauren and her team

The recommendation topics include

Suggested ground rules for operating the teamwhat should be rules that are a given directed by Lauren, and what rules should be determined by the team to build a collaboration for problem-solving

A meeting agenda for the 1^st time Laurens team meets via video conference

The rationale for your suggested agenda

Recommended technology you believe Lauren and her team should use as a team operating virtually, across several time zones

Ways to form a virtual team, with emphasis on the forming phase, for building relationships

Part 3: Recommendations for Managing conflict in a virtual team