The objective of the proposed exercise was to build an egg protection device. There were only three rules. The most important objective of the whole project was for the egg not to break. Well when I titled this entry as crash and burn, its because our team effort did just that. We worked so horribly together that our egg protection device didn't even make it to the testing part, because our egg broke while being mishandled amongst our group members. To start of during our planning phase, we efficiently wrote our names on the piece of paper as required, and named the egg. Then we all just started throwing out ideas, some were liked by members of the group more then others. Although collectively we couldn't come up with a a design. So we did complete step 1. We knew what we needed to do, and we also knew we were very far away from that destination. As a group collectively we did not go through with step 2. Resources weren't and strengths weren't brought out to light. It was more like a shout fest of what should be done by each member of the group. We did implement step 3 into all of our proposed designs. We kept trying to understand how each design would react to the experiment. There were disagreements among which design would work best. Step 4 was not completed by the group. There were no designated roles handed out besides the person that would be participating in the experiment, even that was changed last minute. Step 5 was an all out free for all. People were grabbing, shouting, and arguing. Some group members became discouraged and just sit their quietly, while other members tried to make the experiment work. The design was re designed over and over until there was 3 minutes left and, some strange looking contraption was formulated. The egg was push and pulled to many times, it met its demise while awaiting testing, in the hands of a group member. WHAT A DISASTER.
How could the project have been more successful and effective? One major thing was that a leader should have been implemented. Roles should have been designated. We should have had a leader, and a builder at least. Probably a little more knowledge of physics by some of the group members would have made the project a little easier, as we had designs that were completely opposite of each other. Overall it had to be one of the worst team efforts I have ever encountered in my life.
While i have been reading the most common thing that was missing from the failed groups was leadership and step 2, looking at peoples skill and resources. i think that its really interesting that those two things have such a huge impact on the success of a project.
ReplyDeleteit was good go know that my group was not the only one that was a total mess :)