Rhythm of Team Communication

Team conversations ebb and flow as members collaborate to complete their tasks. This ebb and flow may be characterized as having varying degrees of stability, predictability, and complexity. In this chapter, we examine these characteristics to understand the rhythm of communication using recurrence quantification analysis, including constructing recurrence plots that facilitate visualizing the communication rhythm. Our results underscore when teams may benefit from focused versus cyclic conversations, whether those conversations should follow predictable patterns or be seemingly random, and if the time spent talking about specific topics should be consistent or vary over time. These insights may be dependent upon a variety of issues including where in the lifecycle the teams are, how much time they have to complete their task, and what media is available for communicating.

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