This user-friendly manual walks instructors step by step through the process of creating, assigning, and executing successful group projects at the college level. Informed by a simple input-process-output model of group behavior, this guide provides structured advice, examples, and worksheets to design and facilitate effective team projects. Topics include assigning teams, developing meaningful tasks, fostering leadership, managing conflict, communicating effectively, and supporting teams in an online environment. Each chapter features sections and readymade handouts that speak directly to students, making it easy for educators to share content with their student teams and spend valuable classroom time teaching course material rather than team skills. Whether in person or online, Making Team Projects Work will be a valuable companion for any college educator interested in incorporating group projects into their curricula.
A key role of educators is preparing students for today's world of work, where a top skill demanded by employers is the ability to work together in teams. This user-friendly manual equips educators with the tools needed to provide students with an understanding of what it takes to work successfully on group projects, and learn these valuable teamwork skills. The authors are two college educators with decades of experience teaching group dynamics. In this book, they share their expertise so that novice and experienced educators alike can better plan, execute, and assess group projects. Topics include assigning students to teams, developing a meaningful team task, creating leadership in student groups, managing conflict during a group project, communicating effectively as a group, and supporting teams in an online environment. The book is written in a conversational style and includes structured advice, examples, and worksheets to provide teachers with more confidence to run group projects in their classrooms across a wide range of subjects. The companion website offers additional resources and easy access to the authors who answer questions and provide consultation. This book is an invaluable resource that should be in the library of every educator.What Educators are Saying about the BookPlacing students into groups is a classic instructional method. Yet sometimes students and instructors need supplemental guidance to make group work successful rather than frustrating. If you use student group projects as an instructional method this is a must-have book. This practical resource offers a wealth of information, tips, and instructional strategies to facilitate working and learning in small groups. Highly recommended.Steven A. Beebe, Ph.D.Regents' and University Distinguished ProfessorTexas State UniversityCo-author, Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and PracticesAs a university professor in a large business school for 30 years, I know the value of group projects but have struggled with facilitating them well. I welcome this book. The authors have written a practical and concise treatment to enable group project success. This helpful handbook is full of excellent examples of the challenges those of us with group projects face, and useful solutions to those challenges. I highly recommend this book. Ellen F. Monk, Ph.D.Department of Accounting and MISLerner College of Business & EconomicsUniversity of DelawareI especially like the scenarios and practical applications that this book offers. I can envision high school teachers using this book in a professional learning community to guide their practices. I also can see this book used as a reference material - it's accessible and a quick read with valuable insight and perspectives uncovered. Offering a structured approach to group work would be particularly helpful for teachers.Amy Shannon, M.S. Assistant PrincipalVictor High SchoolThe adage "we are better together" rings true in every educational setting. Students learn best when they learn from each other. I often used group projects so students can blend their knowledge and past experiences to produce great work. And, to teach students how to work collaboratively as a team knowing that this is a critical life skill needed to thrive in today's global community. Now as a school administrator, I often observe teachers who employ team projects, but forget to establish guides and norms to help the team thrive. The authors of this book provide educators with a detailed guide on how students should collaborate to not only produce a project, but to learn critical life skills that can push the team to efficient new heights. This is a must read for teachers who want to get the very best out of their student teams. I highly recommend this book and will incorporate its practices in my district.Michael V. Ginestre, M.S., Superintendent of SchoolsSherman Central School District
This book provides a framework for understanding and managing factors required for achieving successful project and program outcomes. It presents guidelines to help readers develop an understanding of governance and its connection to strategy as the starting point for decisions on what work needs to be done. The book describes how to craft appropriate communication strategies to develop and maintain successful relationships with stakeholders. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of existing project controls and outlines effective communication techniques for managing expectations and acquiring the support required for successful delivery.
The series provides students with the information they need to successfully tackle school projects. Each title examines one type of school project, teaching students whatthe project is and how to complete it. Helpful hints, project steps, sample graphic organizers, and research resources are included throughout the book to make any school project manageable!
Ninety percent of any Computing Science academic staff are involved with project work at some stage of their working life. Often they have no previous experience of how to handle it, and there are no written guidelines or reference books at the moment. Knowledge and practical experiences are often only disseminated from one institution to another when staff change jobs. This book is the first reference work to fill that gap in the market. It will be of use to lecturers and course designers who want to improve their handling of project work in specific courses, and to department heads and deans who want to learn about overall strategic issues and experiences from other institutions.
Since it was first published in 1997, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has become a landmark work that shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice. This second edition offers solid, results-oriented advice on how upper management can create an environment that supports the success of special projects and the development of new products. The book also includes a wealth of examples from the authors' workshop participants and readers of the first edition who have successfully implemented these concepts within their organizations. New in the second edition: Ideas and practices about portfolio management to achieve greater overall success from a portfolio of projects Advice for helping project teams come together to become more effective Information for developing the chief project officer Suggestions for implementing project management information systems More descriptions about organizations and people who have used these principles to develop vastly improved environments
Now in its third edition, this project management classic has been updated with an array of field-tested tools to help upper management ensure the success of projects within organizations. For over twenty years, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed. This new edition includes case studies from companies that have successfully applied the approach, along with practical tools such as templates, surveys, and benchmark reports for savvy leaders who want to ensure project success throughout their organizations. The insights in this book will help management speed projects along instead of getting in their way. All too often, well-intentioned managers put roadblocks in the team's way instead of empowering them with the tools they need to succeed. This approach to project environments, grounded in decades of research and practice, will help you make your organization the most project-friendly it's ever been. Organizational changes rarely work unless upper management is heavily involved. Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers are the ones who ultimately create an environment that supports those projects. The way upper managers define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.
Offers a collection of essays on philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. This book explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. It does not cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy.
Clear, proven solutions for virtual project management challenges Projects Without Boundaries offers project managers a clear framework for bringing both project management practices and project team leadership principles to the virtual space. Written by a team of authors with years of experience managing nationally and internationally distributed teams, this book provides a suite of best practices, checklists, and actionable strategies for managing a project and building a high-performing team in a virtual and multicultural environment. Real-world examples illustrate the application of the concepts discussed, and the Virtual Project Readiness Assessment facilitates both team evaluation and transformation planning for virtual project management improvement. Each chapter focuses on the critical challenges encountered while managing virtual projects and details proven solutions that improve a virtual organization, boost project performance, and facilitate positive outcomes. Globalization and technological advances have merged to create dynamic, productive teams that work together from around the globe; this opportunity can bring great difficulty for project managers, who must negotiate hurdles that do not exist on traditional projects. This book provides ready-made solutions specific to distributed and multicultural teams, to help you achieve the full potential of the global talent pool. Overcome common challenges of virtual projects with distributed teams Navigate complex team dynamics to ensure effective collaboration Work seamlessly across borders, time zones, and cultures Determine optimal virtual communication and collaboration tools Apply traditional project management practices in a virtual setting A team fails or thrives on the strength of its management. Fitting the group's needs, expectations, personalities, and skills into a cohesive whole is seldom simple — and distance adds an additional layer of complexity. Projects Without Boundaries provides expert guidance on keeping it together, with proven practices, tools, and virtual team leadership strategies.
Taking account of modern digital era, the emergence of Internet has brought a new scenario of ecology in project management (PM), its methodology, platform, procedures and tools are subjected to subversive changes. So a monograph of Project Management Under Internet Era is urgently needed for renewing concepts in our PM community. The concept of how PM is implemented on the virtual platform through Internet, which is widely used in PM community based on knowledge economy; meanwhile, it is different from former industrial economy with solid assets as its resources and run the project on a real physical manner. Beside the traditional PM, this book presents how shall we accommodate to conventional PM and also accommodate to Internet environment, it also discusses program management and portfolio management under Internet as well as the challenges of PM in the future. From strategic point of view, talent cultivation is extremely critical to PM development,we need to cultivate our talents accommodating to the digital era and on the "Internet +" platform. This is the impetus and the reason of why this monograph is initiated, which can be used as the textbook for graduate and undergraduate students in related majors, also a reference book to the practitioners, who are working on PM under Internet digital era.
