Groups and Teams Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Groups and Teams - Essay Example Several reasons were collected and comparison made. The major reasons that had affected the performance of the groups were: leadership, communication, perspective towards one another, and commitment. According to Tuckman, the issue of leadership can be resolved according to his model, which describes leadership in four stages namely; formation, forming, storming, norming, and adjourning. The latter being the end of the task. Leadership is the determinant of group success, and with Tuckman’s model, the team issues can be resolved. Keywords: Teams, Members, Communication, Leadership, Tuckman’s Model QUESTION ONE Factors that Caused Poor Functioning of Team A Lack of consistency in terms of attendance by 3 group members during the initial stages of project development, there was a lot of absenteeism. Lack of defined leadership; there was no right procedure for the appointment of leaders, in fact, there is the case where the caretaker and the organizer were appointed in the absence of some members. Poor communication approach: Due to various commitments of the members, it was difficult for them to meet; this was further affected by the methods of communication preferred by members. Some preferred face to face, while others preferred the use of discussion tools. Furthermore, these two methods had other challenges. For the case of face to face, there were conflicts on the meeting points, and at times failure by members to attend. For the case of discussion tools, some members did not have time to read what had been posted. These communication problems greatly affected the progress of the project. According to the statistics collected in the socio-gram, results showed that members could not work well with one another, since there were differences amongst them. Coping up with such an issue in a group is very difficult and usually leads to failure. Lenience of the members in dealing with defaulting members became a routine, and this resulted to overworking on the part of the other members, hence creation of imbalance of workloads. Lack of commitment: some members had taken lightly the task that was before them and therefore could not give it priority; ideas could not be well tapped and often, there was over reliance on a few individuals. Factors that led to Poor Functioning of Group B Late commencement of the project: the members dragged themselves too much, and this reduced their time to work, while they still had to beat the deadline. Poor communication: members rarely met and used discussion tools inadequately. Lack of commitment: this is seen through the two dropouts who earlier on showed some signs of commitment and later retreated. Internal conflicts: although some members denied this, it was still evident that misunderstandings prevailed; some were angry and stressed while doing the work, but could not communicate it out. Norms were not set to enable each member to have a guideline to follow. QUESTION TWO Comparison of Conflic ts in Group A and Group B Tickman’s stage two of group formation is regarded as the storming stage and is seen as the conflict stage. In terms of decision making, there are similarities between the two groups (group A and B). At one point, members agree on certain approaches, but fail to honor the decision. For the two groups, in most occasions, each member decides what to do, regardless of the impact on the project. The position of leadership differed in the two

English - Tablet vs. Laptop Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

English - Tablet vs. Laptop - Essay Example The latest in this competition is the laptop and the smaller more stylish tablet. Will the tablet drive the laptop into oblivion? Many variables come into place in that debate. This article views the debate from the standpoint of a tablet; a stylish, portable media device replacing a laptop, a portable computer. In the process of doing so we will initially examine the difference between the two based on the below factors. Price Portability Features From this evaluation, the essay hopes to provide (to also provide) a reasonable explanation as to why a tablet is not a computer. Competitiveness of Laptop and Tablet in Pricing Price is a very important factor for any product from a consumer point of view. It is dependent on many factors and is relative to usage. When we examine price based from the standpoint of functionality alone and we can see that laptops have an edge over tablets on this aspect. Pricing details of the Laptops: Laptops vary in prices and can be customized accordingly . Laptops are definitely cheaper than tablets due to a few reasons. One of the main reasons for this is that Laptops have been in the market for a long time and have been evolving to meet consumer demands. Today, the commercial side of laptop making is not only restricted to original design makers, thus, the need for competitive pricing has risen. You can get a net book with all the basic computing needs for as low as $350. The price range varies depending on features and this can be tailored according to usage needs and consumer needs. When tailoring a laptop to meet the usage demands based on memory and features, the price paid for one laptop can sometimes buy two tablets. However, when we get to this price point from the standpoint of a computer versus a portable media device, Laptops win. The Cost Front of Tablet: Tablets are costlier than laptops but it is worth the price as it provides impeccable facilities. The technology of a tablet has been under experimentation for a reall y long time. The tablet as we know came in 2010 when Apple Inc. released the Ipad, which was more media centric than PC centric. One of the main reasons for this has been to justify the price with the functions. The difference between the two is explained below. Since 2000, Microsoft has been experimenting along the lines of a tablet PC that works on a different Operating System (OS) as compared to a regular laptop. A tablet uses a lot of specialized technology in its venture to offer sophisticated features and increase portability while not reducing the PC experience. However, it has not been possible so far to create a PC tablet that can justify the price. The current tablets do not justify the price when looked at from the standpoint of the limitations in that particular functionality. Which Comes Best in Portability The need for portability is probably one of the driving factors for technological innovations. Here again the focus is on functionality and we can see that while tab lets are definitely more portable that even the smallest laptops they do not have all the functionality that a laptop as a computer can offer. What are laptops in Portability factor? Laptops are meant to be portable but are not that great when compared with tablets’ portability. With the fight to make things as pocket sized as possible, there are now new laptops that are small and lightweight, without too much compromise on screen resolution. When looking at portability we also have to look at it from the standpo