BLOG POST # 6: Reflection on Principles of Communication/ Teamwork on Programming and Problem-Solution Projects

At last, my ‘strife’ has come along
My 'late nights' are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last!

Truly the journey of our CG1102 and CG1413 modules has been memorable and insightful. Ranging from brainstorming over problem solving, presenting and defending our ideas to reflecting over the hiccups of the past, we students have evolved from “taciturn listeners” to confident “attention seekers” dying to speak out and voice our opinion.

Let me summarize what we’ve learnt over these few months with the 7Cs of effective communication and teamwork.

COURTESY – Throughout this module we were made to interact with each other, collaborate and cooperate while working in teams and thus enhance our listening and inter-personal skills. We learnt to respect each other’s opinion, faced and dealt with conflicting ideas and in the process, also learnt about different cultures and thought processes.

CORRECTNESS – We worked together to solve various problems, put forward our ideas and proposals for their solutions and discussed on the most optimum one. Working in teams helped analyse all aspects of the problem and thus prejudices, limited knowledge and other weaknesses could be avoided.

CONCISENESS – Whether it was while presenting the problem solving analysis, or defending our CG1102 Group Projects or on reflecting on our progress, we learnt to be brief and yet precise.

CLARITY- Belonging to a group with members of different cultural backgrounds, it was essential for us to be clear while expressing our point of view. We learnt to overcome any language barrier and work together to complete the task at hand. Watching our oral presentation videos, we realised how important a role clarity plays, for the idea proposed to be properly understood.

COHERENCE – While preparing for each assignment, we were asked to systematically plan out the work involved, prepare agendas and Gantt Charts, discuss thoroughly and ensure a healthy exchange and intermixing of ideas and a good level of understanding between each member of the team so that our individual submissions would be coherent and inter-related.

CONCRETENESS – It is not only important to express yourself cogently, but also to defend your proposal/solution with valid arguments and polite rebuttal if its questionability is challenged, which we learnt through our oral defence session.

COMPLETENESS – As they say ‘Practice makes a man perfect’ and indeed we have managed to greatly improve our oral, critical and interpersonal skills through the various presentations, conferences and group discussions that we’ve had in this module. From nervous wrecks, we have emerged confident and poised, ready to face the world and its people.

Kudos to Ms Brenda for bearing with us. If it were not for her keen eye for identifying our strengths and her positive comments, all this would not have been possible.

BLOG POST # 5: REFLECTION ON ORAL PRESENTATION 2

“Cloud Computing”

Frankly when I had initially heard of the term, my first thoughts were “Now that computing technology has become so advanced, we’re actually aiming for the skies a.k.a the sky is the limit and where better to start from than the clouds!”

Two interview sessions, several group discussions and a million articles later, I realised that it was MUCH more complex than that! A concept to get hold of, a problem to develop, surveys to conduct, data to collate and a solution to figure and present, the journey ahead would be tough. However, with a great team of 5, all was achieved and in the nick of time!

On reviewing the overall presentation of the group, I’d say all in all we managed to do a good job. We made use of creative slides with effective visual aids, relevant content explaining our observations and conclusions and supported our theory with practical examples such as dropbox and skydrive, so that the panel could relate to it. But what we probably lacked, was effective time management. Our topic was very vast, one that would need a whole lot of explanation to the idea behind our solution, but alas time chose to give up on us.

Personally even though I’d say I have improved since the last presentation, I still have more room for improvement. For instance, even though I had prepared what I would say for each slide, yet at the final moment, stage fright overcame me, and I ultimately had to speak extemporaneously. So words like ‘aaa..’ and other hindrances were still quite prevalent.

I tried to be clear and concise while speaking, and emphasized on those points that I found relevant, using effective voice modulation. I also managed to maintain a good eye contact with the audience and used appropriate hand gestures to support my explanations. However, these could still be worked on and improved.

On the whole, if I were to analyze the presentation, some of the points that I felt we could work on are:-

• Better preparation and hands-on practice with the slides, so that there could be a smooth transition between the presenters, and coherence between their explanations

• Setting a time limit for each segment, so that a time constraint would be imposed and would not be overshot

• Basing our explanations more on why our solution was most optimized rather than on the extent of the problem

POST#4: Reflection on meeting 1

Meet my two new team mates, Ngo Quoc Phong (Phong as we all refer to him as) and Jiang Kuo (Jackie). Although I’m still unsure as to how to pronounce their names correctly =), yet I can assure you, we know each other well enough and have become quite well versed with each other.

We had our first project meeting on 12th Feb 2010 at Prince George’s Park Residence at 7:30pm. At first, each of us was quite reserved and slightly hesitant. We were polite and respectful and made an effort to get well acquainted with each other. But once the meeting took off, it was as if we’d known each other for donkey’s years!

We had a task at hand, and were determined to do our best. The meeting began with us discussing all aspects of the problem, resolving each other’s doubts and making sure that each of us was on the same page. In retrospect, I’d say, this was really useful, because each of us was then clear about what we were supposed to do. Then we took off on how we were going to tackle the question. We discussed the pros and cons of the possible methods and together came up with a good programming method for the CEG Hypermarket inventory system. All in all, the meeting was quite useful. All of us were able to present our ideas, pose interjections, resolve our queries, and keep ourselves abreast of the lab requirements:). Thus, it reduced our work tremendously and also, through group effort we were able to come up with a good solution, which would not have been possible individually.

I’ve always enjoy working in a group. Why? Well because of several reasons:-
• You always tend to learn more when you work in a group, and faster.

• The work gets reduced to such an extent, that each person can give enough time to the part he or she has to cover, and thus on the whole, a better job will be done

• Working in a group can also be very enjoyable, as opposed to working individually which may seem quite monotonous!

Thus to sum up, I quote:

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

POST # 3: RESOLVING INTER-PERSONAL CONFLICT

Wouldn’t life be just a drab if everyone turned out to be a yes-man! Don’t you think the best part of a debate is, not when the speakers go on ranting for or against the motion, but when the open house session begins, and everyone gets to participate and throw in his or her interjections and view-point? Basically, the point I’m trying to convey here is that every person is entitled to an opinion of their own and one must not be afraid to express it. Constantly going by what others say is not what we’d call “changing your mind, but not having a mind of your own”!

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, while working in a group environment, differences in opinion and ideas are bound to arise, leading to minor misunderstandings and eventually resulting in conflicts. But the fact that conflict exists, however, is not necessarily a bad thing: As long as it is resolved effectively, it can lead to personal and professional growth.

Thus I’d say, having conflicts and arguments is in fact good for the team because at least it will lead to an open discussion, if not an argument. As I have aforementioned, what is essential for a team to bring out its best, is that every member should contribute his or her bit to it, which is only possible if each idea is looked into and worked upon. Thus the possibility of a conflict or argument arising should not stop you from putting your point across.

And in the event of a conflict, some points that I found could prove useful are:

• Set your goal as your first priority and remember that each of you represent the team
• Get individual ego out of it
• Plan for and communicate frequently
• Be honest about concerns
• Discuss differences in values openly

However, if conflict is not handled effectively, the results could be damaging, quickly turning into personal dislike thus affecting the team’s group effort. Thus, it is not the conflict that one should be worried about, but how we approach it and what we learn at the end of it, that should be of importance .

Here’s a short amusing clip from the movie “The Little Rascals”, of how a simple apology can make amends and how little changes often lead to positive results!

POST # 2: Observation of team behaviour: intercultural and interpersonal communication

Ever wondered how many different kinds of people you come across in your daily life? There are those who always like to be the centre of attention, and can chatter all day long just to keep the attention going, whereas there are others who would believe in the phrase “Silence is golden”. Some go with the saying “work fast, or forever hold your pace”, while others would argue “slow and steady wins the race”.

We belong to a world consisting of people of different cultural backgrounds, different mindsets, different ideas, different opinions and different methods of working, and thus I'd say

“Our strength should lie in these differences and not just in similarities”.

I myself am experiencing a diverse cultural interaction in my student life. I am an Indian, currently studying in a university of Singapore where I'm required to work with students from China, Vietnam, Singapore, U.K, U.S et al, and I'd have to say it's been GREAT fun. Learning about different cultures and interacting with different people made me realize how true the saying "Variety is the spice of life" really is.

While working in a multi-cultural environment, differences in each individual team member’s perspective are bound to arise. But what we must remember in such a scenario is that the common bond that links us all is nothing but the team we represent.

Clearly while working as a team, it is the job at hand, that needs to be given utmost priority, and in order to ensure that it be done effectively, what is necessary is that there be a healthy exchange and intermixing of ideas and a good level of understanding between each member of the team. This is only possible if each person learns to respect his or her team mates. We must learn to put aside prejudices and preconceived notions, be courteous and respectful of each other and participate actively in each discussion. And most importantly, we should never let language be a barrier, which is often the main cause of all the awkwardness. Only then will we be able to make diversity our forté and not our weakness.



Thus to summarize I’d like to quote:
“Coming together is the beginning;
keeping together is progress;
working together is success”.

Indeed effective team work can move *mountains* glaciers

POST # 1: Communication and teamwork: why they are important for me

“Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it...”

Don’t let your mind wander. What I’m talking about in this context is communication!

Communication has been part of our lives since time immemorial. Whether it’s about the spoken language or the written language, man has always felt the need to communicate.

In fact I’d say even a common language is unnecessary for communication. Even early man would make do with simple hand actions. Of course, in those days there was nothing much to communicate about, other than “sleep”, “want food”, and perhaps “scratch head, there’s a flea stuck”!

Jokes apart, in today’s era, almost every walk of life requires us to work in a team or a group, whether it’s in university life where group projects and discussions will be an everyday matter, or in our professional lives, where your boss might just hand you over with a problem one day and expect your team to come up with solutions, the next.

For instance, in my final year in high school, we, the members of the student council, were in charge of organizing a major event in school, without any help from the staff. So right from collecting funds, arranging the decor, printing the invites, making the souvenirs and putting up the final show, all were managed by dividing the work equally amongst us, and making sure everyone's ideas were implemented, which was only possible through effective communication and teamwork.

While working in a team we might have to work closely with people of different cultures and backgrounds, dissimilar ideas and contrasting points of view. It is in such scenarios that effective team communication comes into play. And in order to get the best outcome of the job at hand, the essential thing needed is collaboration and cooperation. Through teamwork and collaboration, each member can co-operatively work on the project, solve problems, negotiate and resolve conflicts easily.

In other words, effective team communication is what will bridge the team together, maximize the group performance and voilà, you’ll create genius!

I came across an interesting video about Understanding The Importance Of Team Work and communication - Ants Building A Farm Over A Two Week Period (In fact more than the video, it were the quotes, shown intermittently, that drew my attention)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKucprXVGMU&feature=related