Running head: PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 1

Personal Artifact #2 Team Building Project

PUA 550 Seminar for Public Administration
Andrees Rivers
McDaniel College
Summer 2014









PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 2

Presentation of Artifact #2 Team Building Project
The second artifact selected to present is a project called the Team Building Project
completed in my Public Administration Internship course. I am utilizing this paper to fulfill the
Executive Core Qualification of Leading People as I believe that the project focuses solely on
my supervision abilities and development of an effective and productive team. In my role at
McDaniel College as an Area Coordinator of First Year Housing, a large component of the
position involves supervision of eleven student staff Resident Assistants. This is one of the more
challenging supervisory experiences as student staff members are paraprofessionals whom I am
assisting to prepare to become capable professionals. However, as a professional who values
being a passionate motivator, while supporting and encouraging the advancement of my students,
I was up for the challenge. One aspect of this preparation is encouraging effective
communication and team work, both of which are essential in the RA role. In order to
successfully accomplish this, a solid team is necessary, hence my goal is to build and maintain
this strong team. In this project, one can find the overview of the process and journey of
accomplishing this team building endeavor over the past academic year.
The Team Building Project actually exposes the true value of team building efforts even
when all staff members may appear to be in sync. Through appropriate research and polling, I
was able to select certain activities to facilitate with the group. This facilitation often had purpose
in terms of outcome for the staff. Some of these purposes were to enhance communication skills,
group dynamics, and offer numerous leadership opportunities. In addition, while I placed value
on these team builders, many of my staff took advantage of the opportunity to lead some of these
activities which were often better received by peers. In addition to the projects focus on team
building, readers will have a brief look into my supervisory skills and reflections on group
PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 3

dynamics of my staff as well as an observation into team morale. All of which have significant
impact on employee performance which was the primary lesson for me throughout the
completion of this project.
I developed both the assignment instructions as well as the paper which was submitted to
complete the project. In the Internship course, the professor offered students an opportunity to
develop their own learning experience and a portion of this included designing and creating
projects for submission. One of which focused on a Team Building Project. I believed that this
was important to demonstrate my supervision and leadership abilities and the resultant impact by
the program. Again, this project focuses on practical experiences that I have had in my field of
work, specifically, those focusing on efforts in building a successful and productive team spirit
within this eleven person student staff. Ultimately, the Team Building Project is being provided
as an artifact to satisfy the ECQ of Leading People which this artifact does fulfill. Within the
artifact, readers can review developmental techniques to build a strong team and present
leadership opportunities while combatting certain cultural conflicts in my staff of diverse
students.









PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 4


Reflection of Artifact #2 Team Building Project
In conclusion, in order to appropriately reflect on this artifact, I believe that it is most
important to examine each component of the Executive Core Qualification that I am fulfilling
through utilization of this artifact. This is ECQ #2 which is Leading People and focuses on the
ability to lead people while utilizing conflict management, leveraging of diversity, development
of others and team building. Below you can locate a brief explanation of defense for each
component of this ECQ of Leading People (OPM.GOV, n.d.):
Conflict Management: While my staff this year was social and compatible, conflict did
arise when questions of accountability came into play. In addition, there were one or two
staff members who were not a part of this close knitted family established within the
team and this posed another occasional conflict. Also, it should be noted that there were
two RAs on staff who oversaw the same floor and had personality/communication
conflicts. In order to remedy each of the conflicts on my team, I utilized different
approaches:
o Accountability: To combat this, I worked to expand the groups thoughts on team
work and being accountable for tasks in a collective way. The concept/idea of the
team responsibility was employed by my establishment of our team being a
village who depended on each other (Cummings & Worely, p. 606). This
concept was implemented in addition to my setting of clear expectations, offering
more reminders, summary emails of conversations as well as processing through
tasks and jobs with my staff instead of simply dictating this information. Lastly,
an emphasis was placed more so on team motivation/recognition and less on
individual.
PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 5

o Outliers who were not a part of the family on staff: I found that there were some
RAs who were not interested in being family and friends, so I worked with
these individuals to ensure that they still felt a part of the team without forcing
them to do anything. This included establishing more fun for all during staff
outing and bonding experiences which all members were encouraged to attend.
The idea to do so came from a mentor of mine who has done my job for many
years and shares that it is important to combine effective and positive leadership
with some fun things to reduce stress (Glore, 2014).
o Conflict between two co-resident assistants: I facilitated a third-party intervention,
which is an activity aimed at helping people resolve interpersonal conflicts
(Cummings & Worely, p. 755). This intervention was employed in order to
enhance this working relationship. Fortunately, it was successful as it allowed the
two student leaders to communicate in an open, honest and respectful arena while
asking each other questions and reflecting through answers and comments
(Cummings & Worely, p. 297-303).
Leveraging Diversity: My role in accomplishing this component was to demonstrate
appreciation for all capabilities and also develop different methods to work with diverse
staff members. I became more aware of their diversity in communication, backgrounds,
approaches, thoughts, ideas and passions. All of which allowed me to better design
experiences for RAs on an independent and group basis.
Developing Others: This entire project focuses on developing my student staff members
and their potential but also to perform as a team, practice open communication,
accomplish goals in a productive manner and support each other. As a supervisor, I strive
PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 6

to develop each of my RAs personally and professionally both as a team member and
independently. These goals were developed, fine-tuned and discussed during weekly staff
meetings as well as individual one on one sessions that I facilitated with staff members.
In this, many of my team members wanted to take on more leadership roles, improve on
their confidence/communication and enhance planning skills. All of which were
addressed in various team builders, staff development activities, the actual work as an RA
itself and finally, my passion and allowance of sharing my leadership which could be
explained as one of the most important aspects of a leaders strength. That is the ability
to share power with others (Perry, 2010, p.125).
Team Building: In order to achieve productivity within the RA role position, the entire
staff must coordinate functions. In this field we facilitate each student in our residences,
on a consistent basis as a team. Consequently, these various efforts to build and maintain
this team were important and generally successful.
I conclude that this artifact successfully fulfills the ECQ of Leading People as
this piece of work focuses primarily on my role as a supervisor and summarizing this work and
observations. The artifact demonstrates my commitment to leading and supervising a diverse
student staff while attempting to develop their skills and focusing on building a quality team free
of conflicts. Each component of the Leading People ECQ is clearly reviewed and covered at
some point within the artifact and my work outlined in this project. Ultimately, the artifact,
presentation and defense demonstrate my role in managing conflict, developing others,
leveraging diversity and building/leading a successful team of Resident Assistants at McDaniel
College.


PRESENTATION & REFLECTION OF PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #2 7

References
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2009). Organization Development & Change (9th ed.).
Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, pp. 297-755.
Glore, S. (2014). Personal Interview.
OPM.GOV. (n.d.). Executive Core Qualifications. Retrieved June 28, 2014, from
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/executive-core-
qualifications/
Perry, J. L. (2010). Share Leadership. In The Jossey-Bass reader on nonprofit and public
leadership (pp. 124-125). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.