Teaching Teamwork in Information Systems

Teamwork is very important in information systems development. Therefore, most courses in systems analysis and design and many programming courses require students to work on group projects. However, a project group is not the same thing as a team. Furthermore, for a group to become a team, there are several important characteristics that must be developed. These characteristics do not always develop automatically. This chapter discusses the requirements for effectively forming, building, managing, and evaluating teams in information systems courses. Students should be taught these concepts in addition to the regular course content. This chapter also addresses two special issues that deal with team development and team management: managing cultural diversity and managing “virtual” teams, where the team members are geographically separated. INTRODUCTION Teamwork has been the norm for the development of many information systems (IS) projects since the early days of computing. Teamwork is also known to be an effective teaching and learning technique. Therefore, many IS classes in systems analysis and design, and also in programming, use student teams for class projects. However, just because students are required to do This chapter appears in the book, Challenges of Information Technology Education in the 21st Century by Eli Cohen. Copyright © 2002, Idea Group Publishing. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey PA 17033-1117, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITB7077 IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING

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