Exercises About Team Dynamics
One useful set of exercises helps students to become aware of their personality and workstyle differences. Typically, this is accomplished by having students take a personality profile test, such as the Meyers-Briggs Test, and then discussing the results. Other tests better aim at predicting the dynamics created between different personality types, such as Enneagrams or the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Resolution test, which can be used to generate discussion and awareness of team dynamics.
Another approach is to teach the topic of negotiating as a way to look a the interaction, and pit one team against another. Negotiations cases and exercises can be found at .
And one exercise that is still viable for undergraduates (graduate students with work experience have likely seen this already) is the Desert Survival Exercise. This exercise has student prioritize items on a list in terms of their value in survival, then has the group discuss and prioritize the list. Invariably the group does better by pooling its expertise than do any individuals, providing a justifiaction for "why groups."
Exercises About Team Building
There are a number of exercises which give student teams the opportunity to work together, solve problems, and have fun outside of their assigned project. These exercises can either be done with the existing teams, or by breaking existing teams up for the exercise as a way to increase interaction in the class. Some of these exercises are listed in Teambuilding Exercises .
Another approach to team building is to have students fill out a simple questionnaire regarding their skills and interests (as pertain to the project). Then either the instructor or the students can put together teams whose members are complementary in at least their anticipated contributions and goals (see References for "best-practice" use of teamwork in manufacturing courses).
Student teams can be a very traumatic experience. Some course have developed exercises that help students to deal with the frustrations and disappointments that inevitably occur at the end of a team project. These exercises are not well developed, and we can only offer cursory examples here, but hope you will spend some time and attention to the need to discuss the team experience after the project is done.
One undergraduate engineering class actually spent 3 weeks at the end of a 12 week course helping students to understand the team experience. This class was the first in a series of team-based courses and the faculty felt it was important to give the students a strong grounding in teamwork at the beginning of their academic careers.