This project gave us the opportunity to work as a team. This post will include an insight into the team dynamics, and I will reflect upon my problem-solving skills and my contributions to the group.
Rob’s Psychometric Test
At the beginning of this module Rob carried out a psychometric test. We watched The Danish National Symphony Orchestra performing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We examined what each section of the orchestra brought to the team and completed a form that reflected on how we view ourselves in relation to the sections.
I decided I was most like ‘the oboe guy’ or ‘the conductor’. I know from previous experience of working within a team that I am organised and able to delegate like the conductor. I am also able to follow instructions from others whilst having a main role within the team like the oboe guy.
What?
When working within our graphic design team we had said at the beginning that we wouldn’t have a team leader and would all work together and split work evenly. If I had more confidence I would have volunteered as team leader but didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. When we met with the marketing students, I found myself naturally taking the lead. I wanted to ensure that there was good communication between the marketing students and our group and that clear deadlines were in place for the project.
Additionally, within the meetings I took the lead. It was useful to ask plenty of questions and learnt that showing the groups examples of previous work carried out helped generate new ideas. The only struggle at this stage was that during our meeting group two didn’t have any ideas for their project, meaning that the suggestions I had made on how we could help could not be implemented.
Another learning curve from this experience, that again relates to me not wanting to cause issues with team members, was when group one had given us our 3 tasks. The graphic design team members quickly picked what they would like to create leaving me with a 30 second video to make. Moving forward I must ensure that I am not afraid to speak up sooner.
So what?
Whilst I was disappointed that I had a 30 second video to make, I took to the challenge and the marketing students and Ash from eDecks were very pleased with the outcome. In addition, after checking with my team I made the decision to produce alternative options for the other tasks to ensure that the marketing students had options to include within their presentation.
A hindrance to the project was group two’s communication towards the end of the project. At the beginning they were happy to communicate. However, when they sent through their marketing campaign idea after the deadline I had given them, I told them it was too late but offered to make some small social media visuals. After this message they did not respond, to improve this type of interaction in the future I may word a message like this differently to try and keep the communication open.
This project has been interesting to work on. I have enjoyed working with the marketing students because it gave me an insight into what it is like to work with clients and allowed my creativity to be channelled into a productive task. I received kind feedback from group one which led me to believe that my communication is strong, and I will continue with this in the future.
One take away for me to improve on is my confidence when choosing tasks within a group project.