Individual Reflection—Ivy Chow

Our team adopted Google Hangouts (www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/‎) for team meeting to facilitate collaboration during these two months of team work.  The advantage of using Google Hangouts is that it is capable of supporting up to nine persons simultaneous video conferencing.  Productivity tools like Google Drive are also helping in teamwork sharing and collaborating.  As such, our teammates who are geographically separated can meet and work together by virtual means.  With these technologies, we could arrange meetings more easily.

Moreover, with the help of Google Slide and Screen Share, we can share the latest version of the presentation materials among teammates, and each team members could give feedback real-time.  Most importantly, when the most updated version is always put online and being kept in a centralized location, the chance of updating incorrect versions in collaboration is slim.

Google Calendar also plays an important role in collaboration.  Not only teammates can check the team’s schedule, but also individual schedule.  Google Calendar has notification capability which acts like alarm clock for notifying teammates on important deadlines and milestones.

Team members are being able to work with these tools with efficiency.  They are also keeping up with schedule and update information without confusion under minimal supervision and guidance.  For example, when the document are being kept in Google Doc, team members could contribute to the same document for updating a specific part assigned to them, without having to worry about overwriting each other’s updates.   Also, we would have been using email attachment when we have not used Google Drive, as such we don’t have to waste effort on handling manual version keeping and merging of multiple copies from different individual.

Brainstorming is the major method of consolidating collective thinking during virtual meeting.  In order to ensure effective outcomes, each team members must prepare before meeting the materials which were in their expertise. Through proper division of labor, effective assignment based on members’ expertise, and brainstorming, an interim decision was made.

Each interim decision was then discussed before finalization.  Different group of virtual team would discuss the interim decisions and hopefully they could arrive with consensus on the issues.  After few round of negotiations among different groups, a finalized decision would emerge.

The first conflict was the disagreement on adopting team work technologies. This conflict was resolved by sparing extra session on demonstrating and discussing the use of these technologies and fortunately we have come up with consensus by performing workshop on them.

The second conflict was during the brainstorming process.  Brainstorming could help creating ideas, but the process would be easily side-tracked.  The conflict was resolved by requiring members to support their ideas with facts when the brainstorming was leading to chaos.

The third conflict was the disagreement on final decision after meeting. This was where we introduced iterative negotiation processes where interim decisions were refined through iteration of discussion with different combination of virtual team.  This was a timely process but we are grateful that this always led to common consensus in the end.

As mentioned before, Google Hangouts, Google Drive, Google Doc and Google Side, etc. facilitated team collaboration.  However, sometime these technologies did not work as expect, for example some team members claimed that those services are sometime inaccessible when they were in China, some even didn’t understand the operation of those technologies.  As a result they would resort to use more primitive and ineffective technologies like email, which would eventually hamper our performance.

I committed to the team with my knowledge in collaborating technologies, and my experience on management which is also helping in resolving conflicts.

I have successfully organized meeting and led the team to its full potent, and resolved couple of conflicts arise.

My major concern in sharing with the group was our cultural differences might lead to conflict in believes which would eventually end up with unnecessary argument or side-tracking on topics.

Regardless, I have not shared with the group that I think we have taken too much time on iterative negotiations during disagreement on decision.  Sometime I think I would have been more effective to resolve these disagreements when we have chance to meet in person, because there would have been changed in attitude when people are met in person.

Nevertheless, I believe the group is working very well, given that the outcome of our work is quite satisfactory.  I think outcome is all that matters.

In conclusion, I believe our group is completing a high quality project because, first we have successfully made use of technology to surmount our geographically barrier; second we resolved conflicts with our pre-determined processes and eventually come up with ideas that was a result of our fully committed efforts.

Individual Reflection—Vivian LIN

Individual Reflection—Vivian LIN

·         Team Practices:

How do your team members communicate with each other? (Content, frequency, method)

Our team members use Google mail, Google doc, Google hangouts, Wechat, phones etc.

Google mail: share our initial draft ideas of the project first, then tell every other member their phone number, wechat number and qq number through e-mails.

Google doc: Garnet Xue create a Google doc and share the article he wrote to the other 5 members. Garnet is the leader of our Team GIVE, so after discussion he draft our virtual company on the Google doc first and share the article link, we could see his article and the work assigning to us. During the whole process, we could modify each one’s work right after our discussion and everybody could see the process, like who had done modified her job, or who hadn’t.

Google hangouts: We use Google hangouts to communicate with the day class as formal meetings. First Garnet would arrange a meeting time with Cai Yun (day class student) then Garnet would told me and Ivy the meeting time and Cai would tell the rest of his day class teammates. When the time came, we 6 people would log on to the hangouts ahead, and I would write the meeting memo during the meeting.

Wechat: At the usual days, we would like to use an app called wechat to communicate some routines like “what part have you complete already”. Because we 6 people are all from mainland, and wechat is a really popular app among mainland students, just like an app called whatsapp. It’s really useful and ubiquitous, and we could all respond to each other instantly.

Phones: When comes to details of the project, sometimes we need to consult other team member or confirm the details with other member, and we want to make sure as quick as possible, we make phones calls directly.

How well do you believe your team coordinates its work across members? What works and what does not work well? (Technology used routines, etc.)

I think our team coordinates the work well across members. Garnet is the leader and assigned work to each one, and he knows all the technologies so well. What’s more important is that he is really kind and patient to teach us how to use new technologies such as Google doc and Google hangouts, because I have never use Google products before in mainland.

This is a picture of the meeting with day class. The article above our faces is the Google doc we had previously. When we had the meeting we could see the article at the same time so each one could point out his or her question regarding to the profile details. And that gave us the inspiration of our project, the virtual video class where teachers could have lessons like this.

Describe at least three conflicts that occurred within your team. How was each handled? What is talked about? What is ignored or avoided?

We team don’t have conflicts, what we had is cooperation. However we do have some conflicts with the day class, but minor ones. 

After the first presentation of our product, Frank commented that our virtual combination product lack of creativity, but our team stick to the e-book company and no intention to change. Then the day class team had a strong will to change our combination product. That is the only conflict we had between day class team.

After some e-mails and meetings, we finally reached the conclusion. Our team will not change our product, but day class will change their company background from a course video company to an HR company like monster.com in the U.S.A. So our combination product still be a course video website, but the course change from college course to professional interest course. Then both team settled.

In what ways did your use of technology facilitate your team's work? In what ways did your use of technology hamper your team's work?

Technology helps us a lot when communicate with day class team. All the Google products assist two teams to have a better understanding, efficient corresponding, and instant feedbacks. Take the final presentation for example, the day class team presented before us, so they would know Frank’s opinion and suggestion first. After the day class, Cai Yun would wechat me what Frank’s opinion and suggestion for us, and I would do more adjustment of our project presentation before our night class. That provides us convenience to have a better version of project idea and presentation.

What hamper our work is sometimes some of us would have to stay at mainland, and could not get reach of the Google products. That is very inconvenient for our communication. We could not log on to the Google mail, could not use Google search, anything related to Google is not reachable. Ivy is a part time student, and she works at Guangzhou, and I need to go to Shenzhen every weekend. So we two could not keep up with the team sometimes. And that is something very annoying, and hamper our team work very much.

·         Team Processes:

When the team first came together, were any promises or commitments made by team members?

No, there weren’t any promises or commitments made by anyone as far as I could remember. But I have bad memories, so who knows.

What I remember is that we help each other, and we encourage each other, so our team’s name is GIVE. The 2^nd class we need to form a team and create our team name and explain our team meanings, we three just know what to do right after Frank’s announcement of the presentation requirement. Ivy drafted our team logo on the iPad first, and then drew on the paper. Garnet and I searched for team meaning and name. Few minutes later, everyone done their job and combined the part together.

What commitments have you made to the group? What commitments has the group made to you?

I appreciate the whole group’s effort, and I think we had an excellent experience. Each of us tries our best to do our own assigned job and help each other if they need help. For me, although I never presented in front of a class before, my teammates encourage me a lot and Frank makes me feel warm and nice, all this gives me courage and smooth my intense emotion. So I kept practice presenting every HPC class, and it did help me a lot. I can relax when I am presenting to the whole class now, and not as nervous as I used to be. So I do need to thank you for this class for it helps me with my present techniques besides the negotiation skills with other people.

How well have these commitments been kept?

I think the comments will last forever. Because once you have the impression of one person, your minds cannot change easily. Take the final presentation for example. Our original intension is to have a virtual presentation through the Google hangouts, and stimulate a lesson form of our interest websites. However, my laptop could not join the school classroom’s projection instrument. And I do not know what to do and think of give up product demonstration part and just present with the power point slides and get it over with. At this time, Garnet brought his laptop to the platform and quickly settled everything, using his backup plan and showed everyone what our product may look like in the future.

After presentation, Garnet told me why my laptop went wrong, and helped me fix it. And I am really appreciate his kindness.

How well do you believe the group is working together?

I think our group is doing a good job. We three can cooperate well and help each other at the same time. That why our team name is GIVE, without receiving help from each other, no one could finish a tough thing alone. Under the principal of the team spirit, we could complete a target sussesfully.

How successful do you believe the group is in completing a high quality project?

I think our group will complete a high quality project successfully, because Garnet is a talented leader with all kinds of advanced technology knowledge. He is full of idea, and skillful techniques, also good at communicate with other people. If we insist on holding the idea, we would not change no matter what other people say.