Team Proposal Reflection

Ian Coppock

Team Proposal Reflection

How successful were you as a group? Why?

I feel that we were quite successful as a team, though not without a few issues. We managed to collaborate with each other, find meeting times that worked well for all of us, and all find the courage to get our point across at the meetings we attended. Jessica, who is the shyest of us all, makes frequent contributions to our discussions, and I think that's a safe high water mark for the comfort of our meetings. I feel like everyone in our team has a pretty good idea of what their given roles are; mine is the editor and project manager, Amanda handles formatting, Connor does research, Jessica does composition and original writing, and Michael also does writing as well as conduct research, contact individuals, and handle other logistics. Connor is especially ardent at immediately taking on the tasks and challenges in his quarter, and I commend him for that. We're successful at carrying out our assigned tasks and getting things done, and I think this is because we simply have a high-caliber team of responsible, committed students. Each one of us is concerned with the well-being of this project, and we all consider it our responsibility to work together to make it happen. All of us are concerned about our grades and revere them sacredly, to be totally honest. We all seem to get along pretty well; I think we're all just able to keep it light and interact openly with one another (Michael starts us off with a European joke and that seems to clear the air and get us going on the important stuff). All of us seem willing to help and through out suggestions.

What challenges did your group face? How did you try to overcome them? Were you successful? Why or why not?

The biggest challenge that we face right now is an imbalance in workload. Amanda feels that she, Connor and I are doing all of the work, while Michael and Jessica are left with relatively little to do. We never tried to overcome this issue because we were in the midst of trying to get an assignment done in time; assigning work and getting things done were our top priorities, I guess. We were never successful because we never really tried to fix things up. I guess it's much more of a concern with Amanda, but if she takes issue with this, I trust her instincts. We need to work towards making sure everyone is doing their part. Amanda is concerned about Jessica, who, I think, considers her other classwork more important because it's not group work. The first time she said she couldn't do as much as we wanted her to, I let it slide, because she had a major project due that week in every other one of her classes. I understand that; sometimes that happens. But this last week, she wasn't able to do as much either, citing similar reasons, and that was kind of frustrating. Our group's labors need to be considered as important as her "other work". We were not successful at surmounting this challenge because it was never discussed, but we'll bring it up at our next meeting.

What were your contributions to the project? Were you successful? Why or why not?

I made some major contributions to this project; I contributed to most of the original writing, directed the operations of everyone's work on the proposal, and edited the final piece before passing it to Amanda for formatting. I was successful in asserting myself because I realize my duties are being the group's editor and project leader, and our roles are, happily enough, things that everyone takes seriously. The other group members have commented on my work, especially the editing of the proposal's brain storming and research method section, and those are things I take to heart, both as a compliment and as a determination to continue to not disappoint them for as long as we're collaborating.

If you could do it over again, what would you do differently? Why?

I think the first thing I'd do is pay more attention to the syllabus, so that we'd have more time to work on this (and, consequently, less stress). I think the only other thing I'd do differently is bring up Amanda's concern about Michael and Jessica's workload to the entire group. This was something that Amanda didn't bring up until the night the proposal was due, and I credit her for her honesty, but I wish she'd brought it up earlier. I think what I would do differently is encourage my team to voice concerns earlier in the process, so that they don't remain buried. Buried problems cause more trouble over time, so I'm going to find a way to bring these issues up at our next meeting. Apart from this issue that Amanda has voiced to me, we're doing very well. Overall, we have a stellar team.