CCS Blog Post

1. CCS stands for collaboration, coordination, and synergy. Collaboration is to work with someone in order to produce something. This is important because if you don't collaborate in your group nothing will get done, which is not effective. Coordination is to organize the different parts of a job or plan so that the people involved work together effectively. This is important to team/organizational effectiveness just by definition. Synergy is the extra energy or effectiveness that people or businesses create when they combine their efforts. This is important because it establishes how the group will perform. If there is low or no synergy, teams won't collaborate or coordinate as a unit. It really depends on the task but I would say that these are always necessary for groups that want to have effective outcomes. Collaboration and coordination deal with communicating, and if there is no communication, then there will be no positive product. And synergy is what brings everything together in the sense that people create it when combining everything.

 
2. I feel like you can’t really put a finger on competencies that are necessary for successful CCS until you’ve been on a team that has failed a task. Since our team did fail the water balloon test, looking back, we could have done some things differently. Some of the competencies that we lacked were time-management, plan organization, and enthusiasm. When we first received our supplies, we knew that we had 5 minutes to plan and 7 minutes to build. Not once did anyone look at the clock and tell everyone how much time was left, which is bad time-management. Second, our pan was not too organized at all. We just kind of took turns saying what we thought were good ideas. What we could have done is write down what we thought were good plans, then collaborated them, and finally coordinate what was supposed to go where. This way plans could have been fused to make the most appropriate one. Last, we lacked enthusiasm, which has to deal with synergy. Before we even started building, everyone, including myself, was saying our balloon was going to get smashed. When you’re not excited and enthusiastic about the task at hand, then you can’t expect a positive outcome when combining efforts. As for myself, I could have updated the group on time, suggested making our own plans and then combining them, or been more enthusiastic towards a successful outcome.

 
3. In this article 7 people were saved when their boat capsized and sank off the Florida Keys. A person found 3 of the people drifting and called the coast guard, informing them that there were still 4 people drifting at sea. About a hour later, coast guard found them in choppy seas about 4 miles away from where the boat that sank. With any rescue it is critical for effective CCS because they are dealing with terms of life or death. Coast guard had to collaborate and coordinate with each other to have a successful search, and also have synergy so they could find the remaining people.    
   
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/09/7-treading-water-for-20-hours-rescued-off-florida-keys/?intcmp=trending

-Greg Calabrese