Welcome to the Bergstrom Learning Center web-site.  It is designed to assist those who wish to learn practical business skills in areas of team skills, project management, processes, organizational improvement and leadership skills.  It also contains personal writings, reading resources and other interest items.  The site addresses a wide range of subjects from foundational issues to advanced concepts and practices. 

This site was originally developed to assist students at International Space University (ISU) who work in large teams on space-related projects.  These projects pose numerous challenges:

• Students work in very large teams and must complete their work in a very short time frame.

• The teams must organize themselves very quickly and make continuous progress toward their goals.

• Students have varied experience and skill levels in working as team members in large teams.

• Students have diverse perspectives, education, and cultural backgrounds.

• For summer session students, the faculty changes at mid-term bringing new perspectives.

Many of the guides can be used to help each student, team and the faculty organize more quickly, operate more efficiently and collaborate more effectively in reaching their goals.

The following is a summary of each section of the web-site:

 1.   Team Skills Guides

The guides under the heading Team Skills provide information about what it takes to become a high-performing team and how to personally help your team become one.  Several of the guides in this section are focused on helping the team have more effective conversations.  Most of our team learning comes through conversations and the more effective we can make these, the better we will operate together.  Other guides provide information about how to share the workload more effectively.  The large teams will need to break into sub-teams to efficiently handle much of their work.  Several of the guides address aspects of sharing the work through these sub-teams.  These included taking and giving responsibility, making commitments and decision-making options.

 One guide identifies some opportunities for working through conflict.  Conflict is likely in any high-performing team.  This guide can assist you in recognizing your emotions during conflict and ways to deal effectively with them.  It also suggests ways to engage with others to work through conflict if it occurs.

 A summary of all information about teamwork and team projects is included in the document ISU Team Skills Guide.

2.       Project Management Guides

The Project Management Guides provide information that should be helpful to teams in working through major phases of team development and project execution.  These guides focus on major direction setting that the team does together – drafting their mission, developing their project scope, organizing and scheduling and outlining their project report.

One condition for team success is a clear “vision” or shared direction that is supported by team members.  Setting this direction will require that the whole team learn from each other about this, then make decisions about going forward.

 The guides provide information, examples and processes that should assist the teams in making rapid progress through these major phases. 

 3.  Process Guides

The Process Guides provide information that can be used in meeting planning.  They include a meeting planning process that outlines fundamental steps that high-performing teams use to achieve efficiency, effectiveness and good results.  Also included are several processes that can assist teams in strategic planning and in general meeting settings.

4.      Organizational Thinking Guides 

The Organizational Thinking Guides provide information about the challenges and realities of organizational life.  A series of articles and stories provide some insights about opportunities to think differently and to get different results. 

5.      Bibliography

The Biblography provides a reference list in many business categories as well as some general categories.  All of these books and articles provide important information that has influenced the author in his views.  It is hoped that this list may be useful to others in their search for knowledge and progress.

A Final Note

Each section of the web-site continues to expand and to undergo revisions.  Therefore, it should always be considered a work in progress.

These guides are not complete and are just one source of information.  General readers and ISU students are urged to look to other sources and to their team members for guidance throughout their Team Project experience.

I welcome feedback on the Guides and their usefulness to you.  Responses can be made to the e-mail address shown on the web site.

                                                                        JON BERGSTROM