Launching the Project: An Exercise for Demonstrating the Impact of Team Communications on Project Success

Research amply demonstrates that communication is an important determinate of project team success. Teaching team communication skills can be difficult, however, as team assignments are typically completed outside the classroom. Team communication education generally focuses on team dynamics or the interpersonal communication among team members, leaving aside some of the most important elements of project management communication in the development of information systems: task definition and assignment, project documentation, and integration of new members into the ongoing communication process. A self-contained learning unit was designed to introduce a class of senior-level information systems students to these group communication issues and show their importance to the successful completion of a project

A Response to Back to the Future?

As a rhetoric scholar, I obviously applaud David Grant’s claim that effective writing instruction necessarily involves rhetorical education. I could even pile on with corroborating evidence from contemporary pedagogy in speech making, discussion, and interpersonal communication. There is no argument, at least among those who study the subject. Communication is effective and appropriate only to the extent that it conforms to the rhetorical norms of both rhetor and audience—the social, epistemological and performative rules for collective decision making on which they can agree. Thus, communication instruction, including writing instruction, is most effective as coached skill development within a context of rhetorical socialization. The challenge that Dr. Grant identifies is not one of evidence or theoretical understanding

vManagement: Initial Exploration of Management Practice

For several years, the authors have maintained a simulation (sim) in Second LifeTM, with management responsibility for allocating sim resources across research and instructional projects, some of which involved working with residents. Although not originally anticipated to be a research site in management theory and practice, the project presented an unexpected pattern of difficulty and an unexpectedly rich case study to examine why and how the virtual environment generated norms of power and empowerment for which traditional management practice was not effective. We conducted a theoretical thematic analysis on a body of conversation transcripts, meeting agendas and minutes, email messages and other administrative documents, applying concepts from the literature on presence, copresence, embodiment and social capital, seeking to identify the sociocultural context and structural conditions that shaped meanings and experiences of participants in this project. This exploratory analysis suggests a need for development of management theory and practice based on norms of empowerment shaped by designer-user role hybridization – in short, vManagement

Building Virtual Iowa in Second Life: A Case Study

Linden Research’s Second Life is a three dimensional world created by its residents. In this world is an island called Iowa that was envisioned, built, developed and is operated by Iowans, both faculty and citizens from other walks of life. This case study discusses the design and development process, the current content of the island called Iowa and operational issues. Virtual Iowa is a work in progress like many web pages were in the early days of the World Wide Web. The design process was driven by a vision and by funding realities, the building of the 3D space was largely accomplished by volunteers and people compensated with land to use for shopping rentals, or entertainment venues. The purpose of the case is to document the process used, share lessons learned and stimulate more systematic research on virtual building teams and their organization, motivation and management

MBA Capstone Experience

The Capstone Experience is the comprehensive application of the MBA curriculum in a strategic context. Working in small teams with a faculty advisor, students take a strategic business perspective to frame and analyze an issue posed by an area organization. The team a) develops an enterprise-level understanding of the organization\u27s industry and business model, b) applies an appropriate analytical framework to address the client\u27s functional concerns, c) presents recommendations to the client, and d) reports to the MBA faculty with a summary of the situation and its strategic analysis. Clients come from all over the Midwest, but primarily represent businesses and non-profit organizations in northeast Iowa. The projects meet the specific needs of a client, but typically address strategic planning, marketing analysis, process analysis, or feasibility questions. The projects occur year from January through August. The teams consist of three to five students with sufficient diversity to analyze a business problem from a strategic perspective. Each team will include members with expertise across a range of business functions, business cultures, and analytical methods. A mentor from the graduate faculty works with each team, and the team makes several reports to the entire MBA faculty over the course of the project. Our aim is to insure that each team has access to the expertise and resources it will need to effectively complete the project

In search of the corporate citizen: The emerging discourse of corporate ecology

Examinations of corporate discourse tend to dichotomize ethical stakeholder relationships and strategic business decisions, but when the ethical/economic conflict is cast in rhetorical terms, the apparent contradictions can be seen as a failure of traditional Western managerial discourse. Decision making within bureaucratic organizations has followed the traditionally rational, assertive forms of Western discourse, but management theorists increasingly urge corporations to adopt practices more appropriate for complex, adaptive, self‐organizing communities. This emerging rhetorical form has practical utility in an adaptive, post‐industrial “learning organization” but also allows a performance of organizational citizenship that integrates ethical and economic values in a discourse of corporate ecology. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All right reserved

Analytics and Evidence-based Decision Making

The value of rational thinking and evidence-based decision making seems foundational to an effective use of “big dataâ€, analytics, and data-driven decision support. Should we assume managers want to use evidence and facts? Are there situations that call for alternative decision-making methods? Further, can we assume growing data volumes or analytical decision support of that “big data†necessarily enhance evidence-based decision making? \ \ Evidence-based decision making has been criticized for over-reliance or excessive dependence on quantification and quantitative data. A possible solution to over-reliance on data is more discussion and deliberation. DSS builders should try to reinforce the intended rationality of the targeted user and must work to avoid introducing irrationality into the analysis and decision process.