Create Your Country
I have been randomly assigned to a group for this assignment. As I first saw the list, I felt a little nervous - I do not know my members well and it might be hard to break the ice. After reading the brief, I got even scared as it was something about creating a country with its rules, government, security, technology .... I did not take up Geography when I was in secondary, so in my head, I thought that I would 'suffer' from this assignment later on.
Here's the showcase of my work :)
Joe Yee
Kevin Kho
Samiha
Maaz
Yvette
Xin Yan
Samiha
Joe Yee
Yvette
What am I supposed to do ?
Our requirements for the project :
- group assignment of 6
- Presenting our design process of our country
- Empathy, Define, Ideation , Prototype and Presentation
- Each phase requires at least 3 pages except for presentation (only 2 pages)
- INFOGRAPHIC form
- Dateline : Week 8 ( Monday 7/6 )
Progress
Breaking The Ice
As I first received the grouping list, I decided to create a Whatsapp Group with my group members to get to know each other better.
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Maybe we were not familiar with each other, everyone was quiet eventhough I tried engaging them ( I'm quite an extrovert ) Later on, I set up our very first meeting ( a few days before the actual meeting ) to discuss and share our ideas together.
First Meeting & Planning
Our first meeting was a chaos. One was uncontactable, two had a time clash with their CL meeting at the same time, and only 2 attended. Initially, I was shocked. I thought that scheduling a meeting few days beforehand and having their confirmations would have a ' full house ' on the first meeting. We couldn't postpone our meeting any further as the two had other meetings after this too. Then, I decided to split into 2 sessions as I did not wish to waste anyone's time.
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So, I was excited to share my crazy ideas with my team mates. Maybe everyone was fresh to the assignment (( including me )), everyone was silent and maybe they didn't have any ideas at that moment. (( I'm pretty sure everyone would have loads of ideas later on ))
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The first session ended around an hour or less, then a 15 mins break for myself, then second session to inform the other two about what I had shared which also took about an hour. Although it was quite awkward for the first meeting, I believed that later on they will participate actively in the discussion.
Second Meeting
After having a short discussion with Mr Paul, we decided to have the second meeting. Mr Paul advised us to create a google docs for us to throw in ideas and also corrected some of my initial ideas.
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This time was better than the first meeting. Because we had some feedbacks from Mr Paul regarding on my initial ideas, most of them tried to improve and make the ideas better. However, at that moment, most of them might have forgotten or misunderstood the requirements of the assignment. For a while, we had a bit of confusion and somewhat 'conflicts'. I felt bad as I seemed like a dictator to them (( hopefully not ))
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All in all, we managed to delegate our tasks evenly and set all the due dates in order for ourselves to complete our work in time.
Our Progress
After our second meeting, we continued with our own delegated tasks. Usually our discussions will be held in our Whatsapp group. Since I have completed mine earlier, I decided to help my friends if they needed my help. Most of them are quite punctual on our due dates, which I am very thankful for.
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If we encounter any issue, I will ask Mr Paul to give us some advice and guidance.
Finalizing
As a leader of this team, my responsibility was to ensure that our work to be completed before the due date. I was quite strict with datelines, those who passed our required datelines, the work shall not be accepted. Though I sound really unreasonable at times, my main objective was to not affect our group performance and progress. Those who did not manage to hand in their work by our due dates, his/her work will be delegated among ourselves.
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In the end, we managed to complete it around 1 week earlier than the submission date. (Mr Paul finally approved our work) I am quite proud of them eventhough I have been notching them for the whole time.
Reflection
Initially, I thought that this assignment was going to be tough for me as I did not learn about geography much in Secondary school. It turns out that I did not need to be smart in Geography nor History to understand this assignment. Surprisingly, through this assignment, I used more on my scientific knowledge compared to my geographic knowledge (I used to be a pure science student back then) For example, using reverse osmosis to generate hydroelectric for my country which is underwater, using the negative negative positive theory, etc. I also used some basic geography knowledge for our country location. For instance, avoiding ring of fire areas to avoid natural disasters.
This is a group project, therefore we faced different kinds of people with characters of their owns. We learn to work together as a team to delegate task based on each's strengths and weakness.
For this assignment, I voluntarily suggested myself to be a leader. Not because of wanting to put myself higher than others, I think that this is the perfect timing to hone my leadership skills. Facing team mates whom I am not familiar with, how should I lead the team? Certainly, I encounter many difficulties while leading the team. I am very thankful for my family members and friends who supported and motivated me whenever I felt like giving up and when I felt devastated. (I cried a lot for this assignment because I was so confused and lost, especially when I am making a tough decision for certain group project issues) Also, a BIG thank you to Mr Paul who also helped me through this.
From this assignment, I have learnt to listen and form opinions from diverse perspectives of my team mates. By being a leader of this group, I learnt to be clear with our objectives and our assignment requirements. I also learnt that in the future our responsibilities come first, no excuses can be made.