I’m currently serving as the NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) Institute for Chapter Development Chairperson. Part of my duties include; creating a nationwide chapter judging protocol, and overseeing the judging process. I work with several other members on the National, Regional, and Chapter level…varying from FtF interactions to web-conferencing.
For this blog, I’m going to talk about the group including myself and the six regional program chairs (RPCs). I often find myself referring the RPCs as a collective, so it’s like a group within a group…They all represent different geographic regions, so they’re physically distant from one another as well.
Regarding personnel inputs, the RPCs brought in information specific to their regions’ chapters while I contributed the framework for the judging protocol. On the same note, we all have varying experience levels within NSBE leadership positions.
It was interesting, I saw very distinct needs when interacting with the RPCs, some of them were very independent and only wanted the recognition of completing a task others were needier and wanted to feel involved with the whole process. The needier members of the group seemed to slow the process.
Our goal was to finalize and publish the judging protocol to ensure that judging for the chapters would be completed in time for the second report. So not only were we focused on producing a final product, we had to perform efficiently enough to complete the task within the given time frame- Primarily, brain storming considering McGrath’s Task Circumplex.
Our primary means of communication was e-mail, which was very frustrating. It was nice being able to send a lot of information to the group, but when there were deliverables…there was little response and really no way of forcing anyone to do the work in a timely fashion…Though the work was finished, it took much longer than expected. If we were closer in proximity, with even the slightest chance of FtF interaction, the work probably would have been finished in a timelier fashion and at a higher quality.
I anticipate some other issues unfurling in the near future. We are planning a web-conference that will allow us to share a PowerPoint, websites, video, audio, and even our desktop over the internet. Given our geographical disparity (read: time-zone issues) and probably technological differences (not everyone is a student with access to computer labs like Cornell) the issue of distance will impede our work performance…
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I have found that the point that you bring up about proximity having a negative effect on the work that the individuals of the group get done is a very important fact. Because everyone is from different regions it is hard to keep in contact frequently and there is not a lot of pressure being put on people to contribute the amount of work that is needed to be done in that time frame. Especially when communicating through email, it always starts with someone sending out a message, but either the other people may not read it on time to give proper feedback or some people just ignore the email thinking that other group members will reply back and their reply is not important or needed. These are some major issues when working with people who you cannot see face to face. They usually do not have the motivation to put as much effort into their work. Most of the time everyone in the group is thinking this same thing, which leads to poor results of the group as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting how the needier people who wanted to feel more involved slowed the process down. Do you think that maybe the quality of the work was better even though it went slower? I have definitely encountered the same problem when trying to collaborate through email – it promotes free riding and doing work right up until a deadline, no matter how early in the process you present something and ask for comments. In my case, potential FtF interaction didn’t seem to help matters, but I can imagine it is worse without FtF at all.
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