This case asks you to solve a problem in a collaboration project.

The Case: Team Report

You have been assigned to work on a new writing project. This project requires that you work on a team. Apparently, certain software has been developed and distributed that has received a poor rating from the users. Some managers in the company think this dissatisfaction is due to poor software design; yet, other managers think that the documentation was poorly written, so users are not able to use the software effectively. Your writing team is to write a report to all managers stating what the problem is and how to solve it.

You are working with John, the content expert (an engineer who helped design the software) and Susan, the writer who is known for doing excellent research. You are also working with Josh, who has a reputation for being a great editor in the company.

You all have your first meeting, and everything seems to fall into place:

• Susan is responsible for gathering the research and bringing it to the next meeting, along with a brief report stating the overview of the findings.
• John is responsible for collecting data relating to the software.
• Josh is not responsible for anything at this point. The team has agreed that he will edit the first draft.
• You are responsible for writing a draft containing all of the information that is common knowledge at this point.

When the team meets for the second time, some tension seems to be mounting.

Susan seems to have gathered research that does not directly correlate to the task at hand, John declares.

"Susan, this research is meaningless," exclaims John. "How can we write a draft when the research you have here does not pertain to the software at all. The issues presented in this research do not have anything to do with the issues that our users face as they use our software."

"John, it certainly does relate," defends Susan. "This software that you created is causing our users to return it, when they can, and they are writing letters saying that they are threatening to quit using our products. The software isn't intuitive, and that is what my research supports."

"That is nonsense!" screams John. "It is the documentation that YOU wrote that is failing! THAT is why the users are returning the software!"

The Task

Since you all are a team, and you all must write this report, you decide that you must step in. Write a paragraph or two explaining how you would handle this situation. What would you say to your team members? What actions would you take to remedy this problem?