Communication and Collaboration in a Committee

Determine how the committee will communicate and collaborate to complete the committee’s responsibilities and tasks. Each committee member should introduce themselves. As a group, discuss and determine a plan for how the committee will meet to discuss, evaluate, and come to a mutual agreement regarding tasks to be completed within your selected committee.
Collaboration, Communication Options
Generally, committee members meet in a face-to-face environment where communication and collaboration are conducted instantly within one setting; however, when committee members meet within the virtual/online environment, communication and collaboration must take place a little differently. There are many ways communication and collaboration can take place within the virtual world. For this course, committees will need to determine the method of collaboration and communication, which best meets the needs and preferences of the committee members. Below are a few suggestions of methods that may be used for this process. Please review the options outlined, have a discussion with your fellow committee members to determine which mode of communication/collaboration you will use for your committee. All committee members must discuss and agree on the best method/tool to be used by all members.
Option 1 – Discussions- Committees may choose to use this discussion board as their tool for communicating and collaborating with each other to discuss and complete committee tasks. All contributions (individual and group) will occur on the discussions with this option.
• Things to Consider – If using discussions as your means of communication and collaboration, it may be helpful to set separate deadlines for members to post and reply so that progression can be made in time to meet committee task deadlines. Most tasks require several steps or levels of decisions, etc; therefore, this may require having many deadlines spanned over very short periods of time. The scribe will create a group post with a summary of the key points of the discussion/decision- making process and the committee’s final decision.
Option 2 – Zoom Synchronous meetings – Committee members may choose to use the integrated Zoom tool to hold synchronous meetings to discuss and complete committee tasks. Each committee member will post an initial response to the prompt on the discussions board, so the committee members will have suggestions to consider during the Zoom meeting. The subsequent responses, discussions, and decision-making processes would occur during the synchronous Zoom meetings. The scribe will create a group post with a summary of the key points of the discussion/decision- making process and the committee’s final decision.
• Things to Consider – Meetings should be held at least once a week if not more to successfully complete committee tasks. When determining when and how often to meet, you may need to consider the varying differences in the geographic locations, work schedules, etc. of committee members. This may mean having separate meetings to meet similar group members’ needs. This would require someone from each sub-meeting to be responsible for reporting discussions and decisions with the others so decisions can be made collectively for the committee.
Option 3 – Other- Committee members can make alternate suggestions for methods of communication and collaboration. Each committee member will post an initial response to the prompt on the forums, so the committee members will have suggestions to consider while using the alternative method. The subsequent responses, discussions, and decision-making processes would occur using the alternative method. The scribe will create a group post with a summary of the key points of the discussion/decision-making process and the committee’s final decision.
• Things to Consider – Any other method/tool must be approved by the instructor prior to use for committee discussion and task completion. All committee members must contribute to the discussion and approval of willingness to use this method/tool prior to submitting for instructor approval. Any suggested communication/collaboration method/tool must allow committee members to successfully complete committee tasks. Committee members are responsible for learning and using any suggested communication/collaboration method/tool. DUSON is not responsible for instructing members in the use of or support of any “other” communication/collaboration methods or tool.
Step 3: Rotating Committee Member Roles and Responsibilities
Committee members should discuss and determine a plan for how members will share and rotate the roles and responsibilities required to complete required committee tasks. Working in groups (online committees) provides a great opportunity to collaborate with other seasoned professionals and explore different viewpoints, strategies, and solutions; however, working in groups can sometimes be challenging. One way to overcome these challenges is by establishing group (committee) member roles and responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities provide members the clarity needed to stay on task and pay closer attention to the task at hand.
Establishing Committee Roles and Responsibility Distribution Plan
To ensure all committee members have an opportunity to fulfill the manager and scribe roles.
Committee Members Roles and Responsibilities Distribution Plan. To establish the distribution plan each committee should take the following steps:

1. Read the following Committee Member Roles and Responsibilities-
   • Manager: Manages the group by helping to ensure that the committee stays on task, is focused, and assures room for everyone in the conversation.
   • Spokesperson/Scribe: Presents the committee’s ideas to the instructor. The Spokesperson should record notes during the meeting to guide their report. The Spokesperson/Scribe will be responsible for providing any key points of discussion and a summary of the committee’s decisions.
2. Develop a Committee Member Roles and Responsibility Plan explaining how the committee will share and rotate the scribe and manager roles throughout the semester. There are a total of five committee activities to plan for including this one.
   Step 4: Establish Ground Rules and/or Group Norms
   In this step, the group will need to collectively decide if there are any ground rules or norms that they would like to establish. This might be related to what is acceptable communication (e.g., no posting in all CAPS) or it might be related to timelines (e.g., posting the initial post from each group member by Wednesday to leave sufficient time for discussion and write up).
   Step 5: Submitting Committee’s Communication/Collaboration, Committee Member Role/Responsibility Distribution Plans and Group Norms with Instructor for Approval.
   Once the communication/collaboration, roles/responsibilities distribution plans AND group norms have been established, ONE committee member (should be the member assigned to the Spokesperson/Scribe role for this module) should submit a summary of the plans to the discussion board.
   The Communication/Collaboration and Roles/Responsibility Distribution Plans summary should include:
3. Communication/Collaboration Plan – ALL of the details regarding the tools to be used as well as how, when, where the committee will communicate and collaborate as well as the rationale for why the chosen method/tool was selected, etc. Be sure to include any details regarding dates, deadlines, or special circumstances were discussed and decided during committee discussions regarding method/tool selection.
4. Committee Member Roles and Responsibilities Distribution Plan – All of the details related to how committee member’s roles and responsibilities will be distributed among committee members throughout the semester.
5. Group Norms- A list of any norms or rules agreed upon by the committee. If the group has elected not to create norms, then let the instructor know in the final post for this discussion.
   Discussion/Essay Requirements:
   Initial Post (Each committee member via discussions)
   Prompt 1: In your introduction include your name, major, prior experience in evidence practice and what you hope to learn in this course ( Course Name: Nurse as Scholar: Evidence Based Practice, Course Description: This second of a two-semester course continues to build thefoundation needed for nurses in advanced roles to engage in scholarly practice andquality improvement. Students are helped to appreciate the continuum of scholarlyinquiry and how they can contribute to such efforts. They also acquire the
   knowledge and skills essential to form investigative questions, conduct structured
   literature and database searches, and critically evaluate research findings and
   conclusions. Which communication plan do you think would be the most beneficial for the committee? Why do you think it is the best option? (PLEASE ANSWER OPTION1/ DISCUSSION) How do you think the roles of manager and scribe should be rotated or shared? Are there any ground rules or norms you feel are important to include (e.g., has anything been particularly helpful in prior group work)?
   Prompt 2: What are the pros and cons of each of the communication and role rotations plans? What makes the most sense for this particular set of committee members and why? What ground rules or norms does this group think would be helpful over the course of the semester?
   Overall Style: Throughout your discussion, use APA formatting and citations. Write using scholarly writing principles related to grammar and spelling conventions. (Please see attached grading rubrics and other pdfs to cite from)