MS0: Charter

Your task in this milestone is to form a team and decide what you want to build. There are three deliverables: a brief individual essay that each of you needs to write, a project proposal, and a team expectations agreement.

Team Formation

Essay

Read this page on coping with problematic team members and complete the brief essay it asks you to write. Submit your essay individually on CMS.

Proposal

First, make sure you have read the entire project handout.

Submit a two to three page document containing the following information:

Team Expectations

Teamwork isn’t always easy. But when teams work and communicate well, the benefits more than compensate for the difficulties. One way to improve the chances that a team will work well is to agree beforehand on expectations. Here’s how we’ll do that.

At your first team meeting, create a Team Expectations Agreement. On a single sheet of paper, put your names and list the rules and expectations you agree as a team to adopt. We suggest that you start with this:

Feel free to modify as you wish. Make your expectations fairly thorough without being unrealistic. For example, “We will each solve every part of the assignment completely before we get together” or “We will get 100% on every assignment” are probably unrealistic. You might want to reference the section below on “Teamwork and Roles” as part of your expectations.

Each team member should physically sign the sheet, indicating acceptance of these expectations and intention to fulfill them. Scan the sheet, and upload it to the appropriate CMS assignment. [1 point]


Acknowledgment: The list of sample team expectations above is from the University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence, citing Levin and Kent (2001).