Self Reflection Xander

Individual Blog Reflection

Now the group project had been finished timely and all of us were proud of our high performances. After reviewing the collaboration of the group project in this semester, I tried to record my individual learning journey based on the team development cycle, namely forming, storming, norming and performing (Tuckman, 1965).

Forming Stage:

The structure and requirements in this final project was so special and it needed to be finished by one team including two different sub-groups. One sub-group came from the day class and the other came from the evening class. Before we came to meet each other, we had formed our own sub-group at the beginning of the course. However, in the final project, two sub-groups should form a new team and did the final project together.

The first gathering meeting actually happened in the library. Due to the requirements of the course, we cannot face-to-face meet and communicate with the evening class. The virtual meeting could be utilized by a tool called Visimeet. Actually the first process conflict happened in this meeting due to Visimeet. Visimeet was a multi-point videoconferencing tool chosen by the evening class because the members of evening class were full of working experiences and they though this virtual videoconferencing tool was excellent for us. However, as students from mainland China, this was the first time for us to know about this tool and we were not very familiar with it. We spent more than half hour on how to create a new account, how to open it and how to connect with the evening class. In that time we were not very happy because they did not choose some well-known video tools such as Skype. Fortunately, both of us showed enough patience and adopted avoiding method to solve the first process conflict because it was our first meeting and people tended to be positive and polite.   Eventually we had connected with each other under the help of evening class.

After briefly individuals introduction in turn, both of us considered that we should determine the topic of final group project which was the major tasks in our first gathering meeting. As for the topic of final group, it easily reach an agreement because after comparing with all alternatives we found that the Virtual Rescue.org about the rescue in earthquake area was significantly meaningful which can help to save lives and time. Both of sub-group made a commitment to each other. We want to finish the final group project as soon as possible and left more time for us to amend or adjust the group project. The question here was that how the commitment was kept during the process and how we can guarantee the proper progress without scarifying the quality of the project. Therefore, all members in the team believed that a strict time schedules and sufficiently frequent meeting times were the two major methods to guarantee our high performance in the team project. Subsequently, we drafted the tentative time schedules shown in Figure 1 below as the following action scheme. Certainly, the tentative time schedules and schemes would be changed and adjusted if it was necessary on the march.

Timeline	Agenda
10th March	1. Brief introduction of each member 2. Determine the topic 3. Determine the responsibilities of each sub-group 4. Search and collect comprehensively information and data about the topic and each side after meeting and bring them to the next meeting
16th March	1. Share the information and data with each team member 2. Discuss contents and major parts of demand and supply sides 3. Each sub-group assign the tasks for each member for draft the PPTs after the meeting and bring them to the next meeting
19th March	1. The drafts of PPTs in demand sides align with the drafts of supply sides(contents and framework) 2. Allocate detail responsibilities within each member for elaboration and presentation
25th March	1. Review and adjust the PPT 2. Prepare and practice the final presentation
23rd April	1. The deadline of presentation
7th May	1. The deadline of final report

Figure 1: The Tentative Time Schedules

Storming Stage:

In the storming stage, we endeavored to build the team structure and effective communication networks. Which team structure and communication network were more suitable and effective in the final group project?

Because we had three people in each sub-group and we were not in the same class, it was hard to only use centralized communication networks which means that communication was funneled through a central person. If we only adopted centralized communication networks, for example Joshua as the leader of the team, it was hard for Joshua to handle the situation of the evening class because all of members in evening class were part-time students and it meant that they needed to work in the daytime and they were only available for night, in other words, in the class. How about the decentralized communication networks? Did it work? Actually we found that there was still a problem mentioned above under the decentralized communication networks. Subsequently, we thought that maybe we should adopt the centralized communication network in the team-based structure with two leaders (Figure 2A) in order to facilitate the communication between two different sub-groups without any misunderstandings and obstacles, and decentralized communication network in the sub-group-based structure (Figure 2B) in order to facilitate the creation of new ideas and the solution of complex problems within the sub-group. As for choosing the leaders, due to the rich working experiences and past performances, Joshua and Julie became the leaders and both of them were in charge of their own team members. In order to keep frequently communication, in the second virtual meeting, we had determined that they would discuss the progress or the problems synchronously with each other on every Tuesday or Thursday each week from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. by phone. Additionally, email as a major routine communication tool could help us to make a record and transfer our PPTs to each other member for reviewing.

Figure 2A: The Centralized Communication Network in the Team-Based Structure

(Arrow-shaped line represents the flow of information)

Figure 2B: The Decentralized Communication Network in the Sub-group-based Structure

(Arrow-shaped line represents the flow of information)

One thing should be noted here. The second time of process conflict happened in the second virtual meeting alike the first one. (Because I had a professional exam in the same time with the meeting time, unfortunately I cannot attend the meeting. The description of situation below was based on the meeting record and the description of other attendants.) We tried to use Skype in the second meeting firstly, whereas the problem was that the other team members in the evening class were not familiar with Skype and they required to using Visimeet again. In order to save time and focus on the improvement of our project, Joshua determined to avoid the conflicts and we used the Visimeet again. The problem happened again. The computer only can display images in the screen without any sounds. Eventually, we only can use the computer to see each other and simultaneously make a call to listen to each other’s voice. In my opinion, the process conflict should be solved in the first meeting rather than avoid and ignore it. The potential relationship conflict can be triggered off by the process conflict caused by the pending communication tool once we had other frictions in other aspects during the process. Alternatively, we can reach an agreement about the communication tool in virtual meeting. If we adopt the Visimeet as our only communication tool, the evening class should spend a considerable time on teaching us how to use to in order to facilitate the future discuss, and vice versa.

Norming Stage:

In this stage, due to the increase of mutual trust and collaboration, my role became to express my ideas and thoughts to help the team work effectively rather than only to be a good listener.

Firstly I was concerned about that whether to share my worry with our group member. My consideration was that I had a professional exam which was so important for my career plan in the end of March and I needed more time to prepare it which meant that I cannot put my 100% time and effort into the final project before I finished my exam. I found that it was a dilemma for me. If I kept silence, my leader will arrange more tasks for me which meant that I should scarify my time to prepare exam. However, if I said to all of them, they maybe thought that I was not a good team member. Based on the observation and further realization, I found that Joshua and Michelle were easily going people and they like to help others. Therefore, finally I determined to tell my consideration to my group members, Joshua and Michelle. To surprise me, both of them did not blame me and encouraged me to prepare well for the exam. Joshua, who was our sub-group leader, told me that I only need to shoulder some related easy tasks before I finished my exam and after the exam I should take more tough tasks for reduce the burden of the team. Simultaneously, I chose to not tell the evening class because I believed that as an excellent leader Joshua can handle it and keep our group on the right track. After I finished my exam, I comprehensively reviewed the requirements from Dr. Kuo Frank Yu and the draft PPT. I suddenly found a serious problem. The PPT of our demand side actually did not answer completely questions or requirements. After I found that situation, I immediately talked with Joshua and Michelle and both of them agreed with me. Therefore, we quickly fulfilled those missing answers in the PPT.

The third conflict happened after the break of Easter Festival. I remembered that when Joshua and I finished the Virtual Dashboard and gave them to Julie before the break of Easter Festival. In general, Julie and Joshua will contact with each other and communicate with each other about the newest progress in the own sides of project. However, Julie and her evening class suddenly disappeared and did not initiatively contact with us as usual. We waited for one week but the situation kept same. Joshua determined to send an email to ask why they did not contact with us. Julie replied us that she considered that all content and information they needed from our demand side was enough so that it was not necessary to keep contact with us. However, after we revised the PPT, we found that actually we still needed a lot of information from the supply side in order to elaborate our PPT based on the demand side. The conflict here should be solved immediately because it definitely would affect the final marks in the project. In the beginning, we were very angry. However, based on the analysis of the current situation, our group determine to use the “collaborate” as the solution to deal with the conflict rather than to escalate the conflict. We tried to emphasize that we had the same interest (even though the score of sub-group in the same project was different, the perception of complete project also will affect the realization and positively evaluation from Dr. Kuo Frank Yu who would like to see a high performance collaboration happened in two groups.) based on the theories of “False Conflict” and “Fix-Pie Perception” (Thompson, 2009). In additions, from their perspectives, we knew that they were busy for working so that maybe they forgot to give supports to us after the Easter Festival. Therefore, after we negotiated with Julie, she finally sent the materials what we needed to us and provided necessary supports to us. We had achieved the win-win situation in this conflict.

Performing Stage:

After solving the final conflict mentioned above, our team had reached performing stage. In this stage, our team was harmony and productivity in the final period. I drew a conclusion based on the judgment of some specific cases. Figure 3 was captured from the email. At performing stage, team member should enthusiastically and actively participate into problem-solving and ask for “how we can do our best”. From Figure 3, it clearly showed that Julie and the evening class sincerely want to help us to improve our performance and give more suggestions and supports such as the role play and their PPT in the supply side. Synergy effect actually happened in our team and each member wants to help each other to improve the performance as much as they can. The other typical case actually belonged to an emergency and gave me a deep impression. 23^th April was the presentation day for our team. Unfortunately, I suddenly got serious sick and continued to vomiting associated with food poisoning. I cannot arrive at classroom on time because I felt very bad. I informed of Joshua and Michelle. Both of them persuaded me to stay at home if I felt very bad and cannot go to give a presentation. After eating some medicines, I felt better so that I went to the campus. They did not complaint about me, whereas they tried to ask for Dr. Kuo Frank Yu to postpone our presentation. Eventually I reached the classroom before the end of the class and we gave a good presentation even though we met that emergency. I believed that a good and effective team should be concerned about every team member. According to the two specific real cases, I believe that our team already had reached the performing stage.

Figure 3: Partially Intercepting Emails

Conclusion

This course is called “High Performance Collaboration”. I really agree with the opinion of Joshua, where he said in his individual reflection, “collaboration is an art”. Collaboration is not only an art but also a magic which can allow that one plus one is greater than two. Synergy effect is the ultimate goals of collaboration or we can say that collaboration is the foundation of high performance within a team. Conflict management, negotiation skills and knowledge management which are the key parts in the collaboration were practicing during building the Virtual Rescue.org. I have learnt a lot of knowledge about collaboration and how to be a high-performance team. I hope that I can continue to explore this charming art and eventually utilize this art to enhance my career path.

Cheers! The Tie!

References:

C. K. W. de Dreu, A. Evers, B. Beersma, E. S. Kluwer, and A. Nauta, “A Theory-Based Measure of Conflict Management Strategies in the Workplace.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 22 (2001), pp. 645-668.

Donald G. Gifford. Legal Negotiation: Theory and Applications, St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1989 at 3.

Thompson, L. L. (2009). Win-Win Negotiation: Expanding the Pie. In L. L. Thompson, he mind and heart of the negotiator (3 ed., pp. 74-95). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA: Pearson/Prentice Hall. 

Tuckman, Bruce (1965). "Developmental sequence in small groups". Psychological Bulletin 63 (6): 384–99. doi:10.1037/h0022100. PMID 14314073. Retrieved 2008-11-10. "Reprinted with permission in Group Facilitation, Spring 2001"