CommonWealth Magazine - Spring 2005
Isenberg School’s Operations Management Program Excels as Advocate for Productivity and Quality
Faculty Spotlight: Professor Sara McComb
That’s a theme that resonates in Sara McComb’s undergraduate course in project management. “My students learn the ropes of team and project dynamics by serving as consultants to teams at local nonprofit organizations like food banks and shelters. Because the students work in their own exclusive student teams as well, they also get to evaluate and improve their own team and project dynamics—all of that while serving the community.
For the past year and a half, McComb has conducted laboratory experiments, funded by the Office of Naval Research, that explore the dynamics of shared mental models among project team members. “Shared mental models represent the mutual understanding among team members that evolves through their interaction during a project. In teamwork, that understanding is crucial for effective collaboration,” notes McComb, who participated in a variety of project teams during her nine years as an engineer with General Motors.
In her laboratory research, McComb and her research assistant, management science Ph.D. candidate Ralitza Patrachkova, have thus far observed 199 project teams tackle scheduling problems. In the experiments, half of the teams interacted face-to-face and the other half by computer alone. “One significant finding is that mental models of individuals within a team do converge over time. In other words, team members gained a better shared understanding following their training on shared mental models and after having worked together through two experimental sessions,” explains McComb. “That’s notable because at the same time they completed tasks more rapidly and generated higher-quality task solutions.”
In McComb’s findings, face-to-face teams outperformed their computer-mediated counterparts in two areas. The latter required significantly more time to complete their experimental tasks. And face-to-face teams had an easier time establishing an interactive group mental model during the exercise.
“Much of this is common sense, you might say, isn’t it? Why research it?” remarks McComb. “One answer is, we’re establishing a scientifically controlled foundation on which to build studies that will look at different nuances and variations in project teams and their mental models.” This fall McComb introduced time pressure and work environment uncertainty variables into her experiments. “Beyond that, we plan to move from the laboratory to the workplace and to Navy project teams as well,” she adds. “Ultimately, we want our research to contribute to learning aids that allow project teams to create shared mental models at the beginning of their life cycles. And we want to create diagnostic tools that allow teams to pinpoint areas for intervention when their performance is less than desirable. Another exciting aspect of our work is its potential for collaboration between academics and practitioners. Like all of my colleagues in the operations management program, I strive in my work for a marriage between academics and the workplace, between theory and practice.”
Next: Alumni Profile - Matthew Sawa '98