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Team Members
Claira Burn
s3850865@student.rmit.edu.au
Entertainer
Head of IT
Louise Hill
s3909884@student.rmit.edu.au
Commander
Web Developer
Riley McKay
s3839145@student.rmit.edu.au
Consul
Accountant
Biar Deng
s3895962@student.rmit.edu.au
Protagonist
IT Technical Support Analyst
Dang Hai Le
s3770149@student.rmit.edu.au
Advocate
Web Developer
Group
In assignment 3, the group was better at collaboration, and the communication between group members was better. Conversation flowed easily, and members were able to express their points to the group. The group members had more initiative this time around, and people volunteered themselves for jobs/roles to help the group out. Time management was also improved with members having set internal timeframes/goals for themselves and completing them on time. This assignment was also more straightforward in terms of group work as the ice had already been broken, making the whole group work aspect a lot easier and a lot less stressful.
We all started the project slowly, as A3 was released in the middle of many assignments from other classes. So an improvement on A3 could be to make an earlier start on the project, which will lessen the workload later in the semester and reduce future stress with the ending of A3 and if people have other significant assignments due at the end of the semester. Another area that could have also improved the slow start would be having smaller meetings earlier to delegate tasks earlier and ensure the work gets rolling early. Something else that could have been improved is by setting up a google doc that everyone can access earlier, instead of making multiple ones throughout A3, which would be more transparent and easier to use/access.
From the feedback, it seems that no one had a tough time completing their assigned tasks. Because of this, the assignment was done well before the deadline. This is surprising as this assignment was not easy. The group initiative was very good for this assignment, which is surprising as everyone had many other assessments.
It is so important to have initiative, be less shy, and ask as many questions as you need. We have learned about groups that it is essential to be initiative and come out of our comfort zones. Being less shy and asking as many questions as a person needs is necessary to get help from other team members, whether with work confusion or if you're stressed about a high workload and needless roles in the assignment.
Individual
In this assignment, I saw a vast improvement. I saw every group member had a level of leadership and took charge of their tasks. In comparison to A2, it was a bit one-sided in terms of leadership. There was much more communication, as we had more meetings and more talking in the group chat. I found people were asking questions more, asking for help more, and collaborating more. I feel as though in A2, everyone (including me) was a bit shy, which is natural with group assignments in uni. But as we started to work together more, I felt as though everyone came out of their shell and were able to talk about things even not related to this assignment. This made collaborating easier as everyone felt more comfortable. Also, everyone worked on their part and finished everything before the deadline, which is crucial in group assignments. So everyone is working at the same pace, and no one is left behind, not helping/not knowing what to do. Overall, I am thrilled with the way things panned out.
I think there were a lot of improvements in A3 from A2 in terms of communication. Our group chats were more active, and we saw an increase in meetings (A2 was only like one meeting per week). Now, we have 2 to 3 sessions per week, and each meeting saw all of the team members active and speaking on the A3. What could be improved on is probably getting more of the work done in the earlier weeks. However, A3 did begin when many classes had assignments due, and A3 wasn't due until the end of the semester, so other studies were of higher priority at the start of A3. One surprising thing was the team cohesion and how everyone did their roles and got their work done before deadlines. One thing that I have learned working in this group is that there should be two aspects of a team, teamwork as well as individuality and that it's essential to have a balance between working as a team and individually to ensure the work is of high quality and doesn't clash with other team members' work.
Despite the lack of communication and collaboration in the first two weeks of the project, members attended meetings regularly. We had a lot of tasks from different courses to do within those two weeks, which is why the team was unproductive in the first two weeks. However, when team members attended team meetings, they were respectful of each other's opinions and, at the very least, courteous of each other. This was shown in the capacity of team members to allow one person to speak at a time without being interrupted. Furthermore, the degree of collaboration was exceptional. Even though this project was more challenging to complete than assignment 2, our team worked tirelessly to accomplish all sections. The app was difficult to achieve with the time we had, but credit to the team, especially Dang, for persevering. Every team member was able to do their allocated responsibilities to a high quality and on time and quickly and efficiently contribute to ideas—Kudo to the whole team for their outstanding contributions to the completion of this project.
There is evidence showing improvement in the assessment 3. We have more communications than assessment 2, more than three meetings during the finalization of the evaluation. To optimize the result, we shared draft ideas with the team on the messenger and debated. Same as the last time, members of a group respect each other's opinions and are always ready to help each other if someone meets the issues. Meeting participation needs to be improved in the future; some of the reasons for the missing is due to the numbers of assessments in another's courses. However, this could improve the meeting because all members could entirely handle their work to participate in the discussion. As a member of BSOD, I am so proud to be a part of such talented members. We are respected, share equal work, and help others with the issue while working on our part. The members showed me how to do task management, present ideas, and listen to others' feedback to optimize the workflow.
This group assignment was more challenging than A2 to complete. Assignment 3 required more significant amounts for group work and communication to complete. In the beginning, it was difficult as well because we struggled to find a time in which all members could agree on and hence we did not assign roles to team members, which made it challenging to work on the assignment. The fact that group members were not showing up to scheduled tutorial times also made it more difficult. The group discussed these issues, and we managed to arrange times that worked for everyone and turn up to tutorials which were incredibly beneficial in the group to complete this assignment. Being spread across multiple platforms such as GitHub, teams, and google docs have its pros, but I found it challenging to locate the information I was looking for from the group, which intern confused. We could have improved on this by being more organized with our different documents.