Intercultural Virtual Team Project: Team Policies Memo

As Management Communication emphasizes, to complete your team project successfully, you will need to agree on policies and procedures to guide your work. In other words, you will need to develop a team “charter” (p. 155). This assignment asks you to develop such a charter and post it on your team blog. Please also submit a copy to your instructor in the form of a memo.

Assignment Goals	This assignment is designed to help you learn the following: - Write an effective policy memo. - Develop and organize the working procedures of a team.
Audience	The primary audience of your policy and procedures memo consists of your teammates.
Purpose	To ensure the effective, efficient, ethical, and harmonious functioning of the team, through making explicit how team members should behave toward each other and what they should expect of each other.
Deadlines and Deliverables	By October 5, post the guidelines to the team blog and submit the memo to your instructor.
Content	The guidelines should discuss team management and team technology. From Chapters 10 and 11 of your text, make a list of issues that need to be addressed and then determine how your team will address them. These include, for example, Deciding on the team leader and assigning tasks to that person and the other team members Setting expectations about the timing of team members’ responses to emails and posting to the blog and determining actions and correctives when team members do not comply Anticipating conflicts and suggesting how the team can resolve them Developing a management plan that specifies times for updating each other on the work at hand and communicating challenges that may present problems and how the team will overcome them. Determining the team’s technology, including which technology to use for which purposes: What goes in the blog? What goes on email? Will the team investigate using a special shared space for document development? Determining how to accommodate the least technically proficient team member while still using the best technology to get the work done Developing a framework for writing and circulating drafts, including the technology for file sharing, protocols for naming draft versions, the logistics of making and responding to comments, and decisions about which words and pictures should be the final ones.
Evaluation	The best test of your team memo will be the success of your team process. To assess your team memo for effective communication, use the evaluation criteria in your syllabus.
Resources	Management Communication, Chapters 1 (group communication networks), 10, 11 (team work and communication technologies), pp. 117-120 (memos)