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Tools for Assessing and Evaluating Groups 351

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

The case study that opened this chapter concerned Sam, 2. Sam also asked his group to assess how meetings
who had tried several ways to assess and improve his were going. Given what you know about this group,
executive committee’s performance but who elected to what would you have done if you were Sam?
bring in Susanna as an outside consultant. 3. What were the specific issues that Susanna
identified as problems for this group?
1. Do you think Sam’s choice to ask members to
assess their own preference for procedural order 4. What do you think a verbal interaction diagram,
was a good choice? Why do you think he selected content analysis, and SYMLOG diagram might
that scale? Were there better choices for him? have shown regarding the executive committee?
5. What would you have advised the group to do to
improve performance?

KEY TERMS

Test your knowledge of these key terms in this chapter. Definitions can be found in the Glossary.

Consultant Critique SYMLOG
Content analysis Postmeeting reaction (PMR) form Verbal interaction analysis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bales, Robert F. SYMLOG Case Study Kit. New York: Wheelan, Susan A. Creating Effective Teams: A Guide for
Free Press, 1980. Members and Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
Schwarz, Roger M. The Skilled Facilitator: Practical Wis- 1999.
dom for Developing Effective Groups. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

NOTES

1. Mauro Nunes and Henrique O’Neill, “The Promus 4. Linda K. Larkey, “The Development and Validation
Agent System, A Tool to Assess a Virtual Team’s of the Workforce Diversity Questionnaire: An
Performance,” Proceedings of the IADIS Instrument to Assess Interactions in Diverse Work
International Conference on Applied Computing, in Groups,” Management Communication Quarterly, 9
Algarve Portugal, 2 (February 2005): 417–24. (February 1996): 296–337.
2. Jill Nemiro, Michael Beyerlein, Lori Bradley, and 5. Patricia M. Fandt, “The Relationship of Account-
Susan Beyerlein, Eds., The Handbook of High- ability and Interdependent Behavior to Enhancing
Performance Virtual Teams: A Toolkit for Collaborat- Team Consequences,” Group & Organization Studies,
ing Across Boundaries (San Francisco, CA: 16 (1991): 300–12; Harold H. Greenbaum, Ira
Jossey-Bass, 2008): 439–568. T. Kaplan, and William Metlay, “Evaluation of
3. Bobby R. Patton and Kim Giffin, Problem-Solving Problem-Solving Groups,” Group & Organization
Group Interaction (New York: Harper & Row, Studies, 13 (1988): 133–47.
1973): 213–14.

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