Working with MTM (Multiple Team Membership)

Many of the things we do with our students involve a huge number of tasks with similar deadlines, too few mentoring resources, too few students, and a desire to give our students the opportunity to explore any topic they're interested in across all of those tasks.


The result:  multiple team assignments. It's great for exposing them to a wide variety of interests but it's a huge challenge in providing them the time and focus for getting that done.  Here's a great article about tips in managing that and how the benefits of multiple team membership (productivity and learning) can be off-set by higher costs in terms of time, integrating people, and getting things done.

• Multiple Team Membership: Working Together Effectively Before It All Goes Downhill by Michael O'Leary, Mark Mortensen and Anita Wooolley

And a very cool graphic from the article showing the tipping point between productivity and learning benefits and the costs of multiple team membership: