Reflections on CG1102 Project Meeting 1

I, Juncheng and Khoa had our first CG1102 meeting on 12^th February, 2010. I felt that the meeting was quite productive and we managed to complete all the tasks listed in the agenda.

Reviewing the video helped me get a greater insight into what the flaws were and in which areas we require improvement. I think the choice of the venue was not good because we could not observe each other’s behaviour properly which hampered effective communication.

As a team leader, I tried my best to ensure proper participation and that every person has a voice in the final decision. Before the meeting, I asked all the members to prepare for the meeting and come up with their own ideas. The ideas will then be put forward by each member and finally the best idea will be the perfect blend of all our ideas. I think this way of working really helped as we managed to save a lot of time and hence greater efficiency.

One thing which I realised after watching the video was that everyone was not equally involved in the discussion. I also think that we could have discussed a bit slowly giving everyone the chance to think and negotiate before finalising things. I feel that I was reluctant in accepting someone else’s idea.  At times, I interrupted in between the conversation when someone was talking. But I just meant to clarify my doubts before coming to any conclusion.

We were very focused on our work. We also got confused about the feasibility of our idea but at the end we decided to consult our tutor after we were done with the design so as to make sure that we are heading on the right track.  

On the whole, the meeting was good. However, there are certain things which we need to work on and hope to have better meetings in future.
:) :)

Thanks to all my group mates for their support.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts

Conflicts can arise between any two people who disagree at a point. A clash of interests, values, actions or directions often sparks a conflict. But the biggest problem is how to resolve a conflict.

I would like to share with you my personal experience. When I was in 10th standard in school I had a team project. My team had 4 people who all were one of my best friends. We didn’t elect a team leader as we felt that all of us should hold equal importance.

As we moved ahead with our project, we realised that one of the teammates was slacking around and not efficient in her work. Whenever we allocated her the task she would dilly-dally and never complete it before deadline. One day we tried to explain to her the problem and told her that it should be a team effort and she needs to work upon it. She seemed to have misinterpreted our constructive suggestion and retaliated back saying that she need not learn from us.This resulted into a big verbal conflict. She took it as an attempt to offend her and started avoiding us. She didn’t speak to any of us properly and failed to attend the meetings. It really affected our work as well our personal life. We felt that she overreacted to the situation and made a big issue out of it. We knew her since so long still she couldn’t understand us. Our project work became stagnant. All our efforts to explain her went in vain. Things didn’t seem to get any better which lead to ineffective teamwork.

At that point of time we were confused as to how to resolve our problem. We didn’t want that problem to jeopardise our friendship. What should we have done at that point of time?

Should we drop her from our team?

Should we make an effort to resolve our problem?

Should we wait for her to make an effort and come to us to resolve our issues?

Should we find any other alternative?