IEEE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW, VOL. 36, NO. 1, FIRST QUARTER 2008 181

Surf’s Up: Small Group Dynamics—LINDA KOSMIN LANGFORD

EMR Contributing Editor

IEEE DOI 10.1109/EMR.2007.916421

WEB resources providestimuli for mobilizing theefforts of small groups. ManyInternet sites describe teamempowerment strategies, discusschallenges associated withinterpersonal skills development,assess self-directed leadershipinitiatives, compare managementstyles, and evaluate the benefitsof informal communicationchannels. Articles, blogs, bookreviews, essays, and discussionforums target diverse participantconfigurations, group sizeramifications, and projectplanning strategies for actioncrews, ad hoc peer groups, matrixteams, steering committees, andother types of reduced laborpools. The illustrative websitesdescribed below suggest ways toadvance small group momentum,influence group harmony,overcome facilitator obstacles,and promote steady progress.

Free Management Libraryhttp://www.managementhelp.org/

Over 5000 hyperlinks toinformative Web sources areindexed under 650 topics.These are listed within broadcategories such as GroupPerformance, Group Skills,Guiding Skills, and Leadership

Development. Users are directedto articles, books, and essays thatdescribe models, practices, andtheories about group dynamicsincluding coaching, counseling,and facilitator roles. Severalpublications describe managedwork teams and ways to achievepositive outcomes by self-directedwork groups. Users are invited tosuggest new links to help broadencoverage. In addition, there areuseful directories describingother major portal sites thatalso support business interestsof both for-profit and nonprofitviewers.

iSixSigmahttp://www.isixsigma.com/search/

Begin your search by selectingthe database option “Articles”followed by the keyword “small.”This strategy will retrieveinformation about how the SixSigma tool can be modifiedto apply to problem solvingand project improvements foreven a small organization or itsavailable workforce. Roles areexplained for small businessowners, managers, supervisors,and project team players. Inaddition to staffing requirements,methodologies are given that areapplicable to small groups withinsmall companies.

182 IEEE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW, VOL. 36, NO. 1, FIRST QUARTER 2008

Questiahttp://www.questia.com/Index.jsp

Focus is more on the humanitiesand social sciences thanon business or the physicalsciences. It enables researchersto locate a wealth of informationabout the psychological andsocial aspects of teamwork inlarge and small groups. Searchresults identify both current andhistorical works. One exampleis the complete text of theclassic book “Interaction ProcessAnalysis: A Method for theStudy of Small Groups” (AddisonWesley, 1950) by then Harvardfaculty member Robert FreedBales. While visitors can searchthe entire site for free, they aregiven limited access to holdings.For instance, non-subscriberscan only read the contents page,ten preface pages, the first page ofeach of the five chapters, as wellas first pages of the appendix,bibliography and index to theBales’ book. For a fee, subscriberscan read online the full text ofover a million digitized scholarlybooks, journal articles, generalinterest magazines, newspaperarticles, and encyclopedia entries.

The site does offer visitors freetrial time.

Small Group Research:An International Journalof Theory, Investigation,and Applicationhttp://sgr.sagepub.com/

Emphasis is on balancedscholarly reporting of observablesmall group experiences,behaviors, interactions, andcommunication channels.Articles document systematicstudies that present valuable dataand insights about groups withlimited numbers of participants.Site visitors can perform subjectsearches and view bibliographicalinformation. Links to journalarticle abstracts are oftenprovided. Single article accesscan be purchased for one day.Paid subscribers have full accessto current and archived articlesdating back to February, 1970.

Social Psychology Networkhttp://www.socialpsychology.org/

Managers seeking best practicesfor motivating, energizing, andstimulating teams will welcomeaccess to this site. It features

a targeted search engine andserves as a portal to thousandsof other Web resources, manyof which focus on small groupprocesses. Links lead to theory,discussions, and publicationsthat cover facilitator roles,cooperation enablers, conflictresolution techniques, decisionmodels, groupthink perspectives,and multicultural synergy in andamong small groups.

The McKinsey Quarterlyhttp://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/

Several entries describe howdifferent types of ad hoc peergroups collaborate and interactin companies. A recent articleexplains how organizations canbuild upon and benefit fromthe vigor of informal employeenetworks in order to facilitatelasting change. Another articlesuggests ways to identify andcapitalize on those influentialsubgroup structures thatassociates may develop amongthemselves to expedite work,but which tend to be somewhathidden from management. Sitevisitors must register in order toread the full text of all articles.