Narrative on Team Collaboration:

The Knowledge Management Class worked towards the common goal of understanding the concepts of knowledge management and applying these concepts to the real world.

Knowledge Management Class:

Over the six-week period, the Knowledge Management class gained and shared knowledge on different topics on Knowledge Management. It was a fascinating experience to work with a virtual team of 14 participants. The class participants spent the first couple of days reading and honing their understanding on specific topics of Knowledge Management. In the second half of the week, class interaction took place amongst all class participants thus enabling an environment of knowledge sharing.

The class collaborated to come up with a group consensus on specific questions posed by the Professor. Certain members volunteered to play the role of a leader to facilitate the process of coming up with a group consensus. After the first couple of weeks, the discussions were focused more on interaction between different individuals rather than the whole class coming to a consensus on a specific question. This type of discussion helped everyone to draw from each other’s experience and enrich their own knowledge base. Hence, the group learned to share, to collaborate and to contribute in order to meet both individual and group goals successfully.

Class Project:

Different people assumed different roles for the class project. Each individual was on at least 2 different teams. Each team divided the work at hand between individuals based on specific skills of a person. As mentioned by Debbie: “My overall feelings of all the teams working together were excellent. I think that everyone worked with all the teams and coordinated well. I know for a fact the each of us was not only dedicated to one team, but was eager to learn all of the pieces. Everyone was willing to pick up any slack and did not complain, and this is team spirit even under the worst circumstances. This defines teamwork. I learned and gained tremendously from all the teams and each of you. Everyone brought their experiences and heightened their knowledge from this class. I have to give special thanks for Carolyn Goldman for taking the lead and overseeing all the teams.”

All the teams tried to keep up with the planned dates for the Class Project. By communicating via chat sessions, conference calls, emails and discussion forums, the teams worked seamlessly to attain their goals. There was a lot of enthusiasm and positive energy in all the teams that made this project successfully despite hectic work schedules of different individuals.

Vince’s comments on collaboration in the Project Management Team was: “I was privileged to be on the Project Management team for the past 5 weeks with 4 hardworking and studio members (Carolyn, Debbie and Andrea) who worked diligently to get our plans and goals out for the team as a whole. The directive set out proved how well organized and focused our team is and the enthusiasm we continue to have these remaining days. Our responsibilities were an enormous undertaking, which included coordinating the class consensus on the class project concept, and the class consensus on how to evaluate a KMS (KMS metrics). I think team work in general illustrates relationships at there best and in any business for it to be successful, you need the interaction, particularly in building a KMS system – to achieve a working and valuable tool.”