Week 1: Forming groups

UXD730

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Study block four is the fourth module, Co-creative Design and Development Practice. In the next 12 weeks, I will be working in a team to build a high-fidelity prototype, create a pitch video, and produce a report documenting my contribution to the project.

Forming a group

I wanted to be proactive and start forming groups as soon as possible to avoid any last-minute challenges. I used my initiative and reached out to a fellow UXD student who was happy to form a group. Another pair of students reached out to me, and I could sense they were keen and committed to the project as I was, which gave me more confidence in working together. Forming a team is a mutual choice rather than a rational decision (Bolman and Deal 1992: 38). It can be seen as a friendly ritual whereby people agree to come together positively.

My team members include Alaa, Aleksandra and Jake, who are all from the UXD course. We deliberately formed a user experience design (UXD) based group because we wanted to focus on creating a prototype rather than a game. We felt strongly about keeping the group as four members so we could work closely and evenly distribute tasks accordingly. It wasn't easy to turn away other students, but due to our similar schedules and timezones, we felt it was important to stick to a medium-sized group. Working in smaller groups is very common in large organisations, and when collaborating well, it can exceed the group's performance (Bolman and Deal 1992: 34).

Brainstorming

We agreed that Jake would be the project leader in the first team meetup, and other roles may be assigned later. The meeting agenda included team availability for weekly meetings, method of communication and tools such as Figma Jam and Trello to be utilised.

We chose to stick to the UXD brief, sustainability. The first collaborative task was brainstorming ideas and words related to sustainability using Figma Jam, an online tool for team participation. We had five minutes to write down as many ideas on post-it notes. Then each person in the group briefly explained the concept of each idea. The post-it notes were then grouped up according to similarity and context. Once this was established, we had two votes to choose our favourite topic. The results showed the fashion/products topic is most popular. This first activity was a positive start to the group project as we were all on board with the same topic. The team members were supportive and made sure everyone had a chance to speak.

Next steps

The next step is for the team leader to set up a kanban board so we can organise our activities and keep track of the project's progress. I have volunteered to set up a Gantt chart to inform us of deadlines. Each team member will research individually the topic of sustainability of fashion/products using literature review and market research. The ideas formed together will be discussed in the next group meeting and shared amongst the team in preparation to finalise the brief.

Reflection

Reflecting on this week, I feel more confident working in a team because the group has been supportive and positive. I am excited to learn from others and improve my learning to enhance my practice.

Although Gantt charts are usually used in the waterfall approach, we will be implementing an agile approach. I believe the Gantt chart is still helpful because we can visualise the project's journey, have an overview of the upcoming tasks and deadlines and be aware of potential failures that may arise (Maylor 2001: 95).

References

BOLMAN, Lee G. and Terrence E. DEAL. 1992. ‘What Makes a Team Work?’ Organizational dynamics 21(2), 34–44.

MAYLOR, Harvey. 2001. ‘Beyond the Gantt Chart:: Project Management Moving on’. European Management Journal 19(1), 92–100.