1. First of all, the class dissolved into what was essentially chaos and I believe that this was due to the fact that there were too many different ideas of what people wanted to do for the midterm. Take for instance Mark who was extremely focused on video. Personally, I blame our professor a little bit for this (I think it may have actually been planned as a test ... she's clever like that.) because she gave us three options up front and then essentially told us that we could "Morph the project what we saw fit." That was a mistake because everyone wanted something different and wasn't as worried about what was the best option for the group and what the client wanted.
2. I could have tried to prevent this if I had actually spoken up and realized what was going on before I did. (When I did, we had only about 20 minutes late and that's when I spoke up and said we needed to get into groups before the end of class.) I also sided with Mark at the beginning which I probably shouldn't have done, but alas, what's done is done.
I kind of feel stupid now looking back, but at the time, I honestly didn't know what to do or really what was happening until it was almost too late to fix anything.
3. As for applying ideas ... if you can't apply them it's kind of worthless isn't it. It's like training a soldier but when he's put on the battlefield and his life and the lives of his squad mates are in danger, he can't pull the trigger. Perhaps a bit more extreme on the analogy side than on the actual side of things, but you get the idea.
4. I think that in the future I can be more mindful through two things: first, this experience will definitely help me notice it if a similar situation pops up again, and secondly I need to disengage my personal opinions and replace them with opinions of the group. It's just hard to think of the good of the group when I am sitting there and thinking about things that I want to do that are far more engaging for me.
It would also help to think about the client and account for their needs and wants and suggestions, which we really did not do until Zach made his speech about "The client asked for e-cards so they're getting the damn e-cards." (Great line by the way and it kind of slapped us back on track.) I know that really helped me focus on what was important and that's when I said we were wasting time and needed to get into groups, which I'm glad we did, otherwise we would have had even less time on the project than we did so a lot of the fine tuning couldn't have happened, at least in my group.
5. As for sticking with people you already know, I chose the people I did for a variety of reasons. I had worked with Cabana before and I knew I would work well with him again. We have similar tastes and work ethics and to be frank, I really like the guy. As for the other four, the reason I chose them was because they played the board game Pandemic with me and I saw how they worked together with that game and it went damn well, especially for their first playthrough. (Which is near impossible to win, and although we had to cut it short, they were well on their way.)
It may seem stupid and arbitrary, but that's the reason I picked them and in hindsight I'm glad I did. The other reason I picked them was because I knew Meredith was great at art, I had seen her work before. I knew Cabana was a born leader: smart, charismatic, etc. and I figured he would be the team leader. (I was wrong unfortunately but he still made an excellent researcher and I took the job as a decent, but not great, team leader.) I knew Chewy knew his way around coding and programming so I figured he could tackle the HTML and even if he couldn't, I could help with it. I also knew Alec did solid art and design and since he hadn't been grabbed by anyone, I grabbed him too.
And yes, they had all played Pandemic with me too...
6. I learned that I am not the best at working with a large and diverse group, I'm better with a group of maybe a half dozen or one on one. Large groups intimidate me, I'll be honest. I feel like I'll say something stupid and embarrassing and so a lot of times I don't say anything at all. I don't like it, but it's true.
As for what I learned about team building: the more people you have in a group, the harder it is to make them form a cohesive team. I feel like smaller groups have a much much better chance at creating a great team, but when you get about twenty people with different opinions and ideas, well you can't please everyone and that leads to conflict a lot quicker than with a smaller group. At least that's what I've gotten from experience in this class and others.
7. I think potential conflict could have been stopped had the floor not been opened to all suggestions, if our professor had just stuck with the original three ideas and said, "You cannot deviate from these, pick one." the whole thing would have been a hell of a lot easier and less explosive than it was. Also, if everyone in the class had actually spoken up, that would have probably helped, as it was, only maybe a quarter of the class really said anything. (I was apart of the silent majority so I'm partially to blame as well)
But I think most of the conflict stemmed from not giving us any sort of regulations and so we had too much freedom. (Yes I believe that is a thing. Anarchy is never smart.) There needed to be more limits and there weren't and had there been such, the problems we experienced would not have happened. Maybe that's a cop-out answer, but that's how I feel about the situation, so take that as you will.
8. Backing down is never a good option, no one should ever feel pressured into backing down from anything, there's nothing wrong with discussion but when someone feels like they don't have a say, that's wrong. Ways that this could have been prevented was if the room had been a little less hostile, if everyone was open and talking instead of just a few people, and also if we were to have utilized some sort of voting system. Voting would have given everyone a voice, and it would have shown which ideas most people liked, etc. As it was, the open discussion was good but it wasn't utilized correctly at all unfortunately.
Those are my suggestions, for whatever they're worth.
