My first reflection on last class' exercise was how amazingly engaged everyone was. As soon as that timer started the adrenaline started pumping through people's veins, and the competitiveness among the groups grew intense. Looking back at the planning process my own group went through, I continued to be amazed over how all steps were at some point were covered, although not necessarily in the same order you're "suppose" to.
The first step our group took was to clear up any confusion over the task (when are we allowed to use the tools? how much time do we have after the planning process is done?). By doing that we went through step 1 in the planning process by clearly defining our goals and objectives. After everyone was on board with what the goal was we quickly decided who was to drop the egg and who should run for the scissors when it was time for that. I guess you could call that determining your resources and current status, which is step 2. I think this step would have been more important if the assignment were more complex with more different tasks. In this specific case it would have been a waste of time to spend more effort on analyzing each individuals strengths and weaknesses.
Next we came up with a handful of designs, but quickly found flaws in each one. We didn't go through step 3 and 4 in order, but instead just threw out ideas and criticism (good and bad) to each one. Looking back we probably would have been better off by not rejecting different designs so fast, because we kept going back and forth between different designs. Eventually we decided on one that we thought could work. But what we forgot to do was to decide who should do what and it was also a little unclear exactly how the execution of our plan should pan out. I guess this could have been prevented if we had a clear leader who could assign the different tasks so that when it was time to actually build this protection everyone knew what to do.
Step 5 was somewhat of a disappointment as we soon discovered that the tejp we were given wasn't sticky enough to secure the straws onto the egg. This forced the group to rethink fast and to revise the previous strategy. Eventually we managed to finish our construction and made the deadline. Sadly our construction didn't protect the egg from breaking. The way we had positioned our straws made the straws weak and soft instead of firm and protective.
In conclusion I think that our group did really well on the planning part. Although we didn't have a leader everyone in the group was involved and really wanted to contribute. Although I think we collectively disregarded ideas a little too fast, there was still a lot of support for the ideas brought up. It's pretty interesting how people who don't know each other at all, given a mutual goal, can become so connected and supportive of each other. And while our group might have mixed up a few steps, and not thoroughly gone through other, the overall planning process I think went really well.
About Me
- Pernilla Ekberg
- The summer of 2006, about a month after graduating High School, I packed most of my belongings and moved across the Atlantic from the far too small country of Sweden to the Big Apple. After a year of wild partying and hard work I entered Baruch College with a dream of a degree in International Marketing. Now, almost 4 years after I entered JFK airport with everything I owned in my hands, the dream of a success career in business is still growing strong!
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I definitely agree about the tape. Our group also touched the steps in random orders. It's good that your group was very supportive of each other. Our group needed to work on that encouragement criteria a little bit more.
ReplyDeleteEven though I wasn't there for the planning activity, it sounds like your group did a great job under the time constraint. Maybe if you guys had more time then you will be able to consider the other creative solutions that were dismissed. I agree with your point that given a common goal, there's no limit to how much people who doesn't know each other can accomplish together. It's amazing.
ReplyDeleteI agree like everyone else in the class that the tape was a issue. Also, my group did random steps as well,we were all over the place when we got the materials. Same thing happened to my group, we just kept throwing ideas out but many of them got shot down.I wish we had more time for the project though. Anyways great post it was interesting to see the similarities and differences of our groups planning. Thanks
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you noted that your group did not follow all of the planning process steps in order, but still were successful in planning. That goes to show that maybe the order doesn't really matter as long as each step is given attention to. Also, some steps may not require as much attention as others depending on the task ( in your team's case, you said it wasnt relevant to the task to discuss strenghts and weaknesses of the group members since the goal was general). Although your team did not succeed in protecting the egg, it seems that you did plan well and the failure to protect the egg could be blamed on time restraint and on the bad tape.
ReplyDeleteMy group encountered the same problem with the tape as well. Getting it to stick consumed a good amount of our time. It was definitely a fun experience that brought everyone together.
ReplyDeleteOur group also lacked a leader too, but we pretty much went through the same thing your group did, where everyone just got up and started contributing to building the contraption. If you think about it, your group had several leaders!
Yea, I agree that the tape was not sticky enough. My group also worked until the last second and had to make changes in the last seconds before the deadline. Also, I noticed that just like our group, all your members helped out which is great!!
ReplyDeleteIn my group as well, too many ideas were thrown out. Many of the group members gave great ideas for designs but we did not take the time to seriously consider these ideas. Many of them could have been better off than the one we eventually chose.
ReplyDeleteI think that people in my group had interesting idea that were shut down very quickly. However, i belive that shutting down most ideas is necessary to succeed in the planning project like the one we had. If too many ideas are being thrown around it is difficult to come up with a strong plan in the time we had.
ReplyDeleteMy group had a lot of similar exercises your group went through. Especially having to rethink and redo our initial plan. I think that part of the project was the most stressful and time consuming. Finding out our materials weren't suitable for our mission and having to undo the whole thing and find another method. Next time, I hope groups can work better within time limits and think more reasonably considering the items to be used and the amount of time it must be completed.
ReplyDeleteWe had a similar idea, but soon discovered that the tape was not sticky enough. I guess we failed, because we did not come up with that scenario in advance, which put us at a disadvantage. Once we had all the resources, we had to create a new plan.
ReplyDeleteSomething similar was going on in our group too. At first, we tried to collect different ideas, but somehow very quickly we picked only one and spent the rest of the time working on that particular idea, as it turned out it was not the best one. And almost the same idea of an egg protector as the winning team had was rejected in the very beginning...
ReplyDeleteI guess we all had the same problem: too many ideas, too little time! I think our group came up with 2 ideas per person! It was really crazy and messy at first but once we decided to follow one only plan it got better.
ReplyDeleteI again think that everyone had the same issues from team to team. It was fun to come up with a plan for the egg activity, but getting those ideas to translate into an actual reality is a whole different and difficult experiment.
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