Connect the team to project priorities and expectations

Rebecca creates a place using the Team Place template, customizes the Welcome page to display project objectives to the team, and creates a blog post to set team expectations.

The ErgoLine project is created

The project prioritization team provides Rebecca with the following objectives for the ErgoLine project:

Scrap rates cannot exceed current scrap rates for the non-ergonomic power tool lines.
Manufacturing costs cannot exceed current non-ergonomic power tool lines. Non-ergonomic power tool lines will be gradually phased out as the new Ergoline power tools are introduced to Renovations and other home improvement stores.
Ergoline power tools must be compliant with industry standards.
The team must introduce the new ergonomic power tool line by 3rd quarter. The initial focus of the project is to redesign the handles to alleviate hand injuries due to vibration caused by repetitive use of power tools. Handles must also use a material that provides a non-slip grip.
Market share should increase by 30% with a target Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 15%.

Rebecca creates a place for the ErgoLine project

Rebecca quickly responds to these objectives by creating a place using the Team Place template. This template seems like the best choice since it provides a variety of ways of communicating with her team. The Team Place template contains a Welcome page, blog, wiki, and a library. She selects this template and then names her place ErgoLine after the project name.

Rebecca highlights the objectives to the team

After creating a place, she begins to customize this place for her team by renaming the Welcome page to Objectives using the Customize link. After renaming the page, she edits the contents of this page to display the objectives she received from the project prioritization team and to highlight how the team should use the pages of this place to reach these objectives.

Rebecca creates her first blog to set expectations

Rebecca knows that this team will have to act and react to process upsets and design dilemmas at an accelerated pace. To help her team turn the objectives listed on the Welcome page into a reality, Rebecca creates her first blog post to guide the team on what her expectations are for using the blog on the ErgoLine project. The blog is going to serve as critical tool for fast paced decisions that require team input.

She sets the following expectations in her first post:

This blog is the "hot spot" for brainstorming about trials, design changes, and manufacturing issues, as well as any issues that occur that affect the project.
Each team member needs to subscribe to the blog's feed in order to stay up to date. Since the project must be completed by third quarter, the team does not have the luxury to get embedded in e-mail chains that are not productive.
The posts and comments are all about the content and the input provided. Perfect grammar is great but is not a necessity. The point of this blog is to get questions and concerns out there as quickly as possible.

How does the walk-through change if the team uses Lotus Quickr, services for IBM^® Lotus^® Domino^®?

Rebecca creates a place using the Standard template. The Standard template contains Home, Discussion, Library, Calendar, Tasks, Index, and Members folders as well as the ability to customize the place.
After entering her place, Rebecca sees the Welcome, Team Goals, and Team News pages in the Home folder. She decides to edit these default pages to reflect the needs of her team and to add a new page to the Home folder.
Rebecca decides to use the Welcome page as a place to store contact information, add photographs of core team members, and to keep a running list of other team members that may later contribute content to the site. She navigates to the Welcome page and clicks Edit to begin making changes. While she is editing this page, she renames the Welcome page to Meet the team to better reflect the purpose of the page.
Rebecca edits the Team Goals page to display the objectives that she received from the project prioritization team. To help the team turn the objectives listed on the Team Goals page into a reality, she requests that team members subscribe to the Discussion feed in order to actively brainstorm about trials, design changes, and manufacturing issues. She also adds the project plan to this page to provide upper management with a high level view of milestones and other important dates.
On the Team News page, Rebecca provides direction on when to use the folders and pages in this place to reach the team goals for this project. For example, the Library should be used over the Discussion folder for technical documents that need approval. The Calendar complements the project plan that is located in the Team Goals folder and provides a more detailed view of what experiments are going on that day, test schedules, and meetings. She asks that everyone add news to the page as the project progresses.
After editing the default pages, Rebecca creates a page in the Home folder named Resources to contain useful links to technical and marketing information in other places. For example, the team will frequently need to submit machine shop requests, review project priority, enter project status reports, and check out frequently used design spreadsheets. This page centralizes useful information in one location.
After editing the default pages and adding a page to the Home folder, Rebecca decides that the order of these pages is not quite right. She clicks on Folder Options and changes the order of these pages from Meet the Team, Team Goals, Team News, and Resources to Team Goals, Meet the team, Resources, and Team News.