Blog #2: Reflection on CS2103T project - No Conflict

In this blog post, I will be writing about a challenge my team is facing, “there is no conflict”. In normal situations, teams usually have arguments when there are disagreements. However, in my team, team members tend to keep quiet or agree to it when in actual fact, they disagree to it. For instance, everyone will keep quiet when Sathish allocates tasks to us. Also, Yu Kai is quite quiet during group discussions and he seems to be in deep thoughts. As for ZhenYang, he tends to ask more questions than provide ideas. As for myself, I have a tendency to give up my ideas rather than trying to convince my team when someone disagrees to it.

These methods are frequently used to avoid conflicts (Academic Leadership Support, n.d). However, according to Academic Leadership Support (n.d), conflicts should be allowed and it should be resolved early. This is because avoiding it would let the problem accumulate which leads to severe consequences (Anderson, 2010). When the problem blows up, relationships may be damaged. On top of that, the team may be missing out an important piece of information. This is because the opinion may contain a better solution, a major problem or suggestion that may help the team to think further. Additionally, team members who are quiet will become more recessive thus contributing less to team discussions. Likewise, this makes other members more dominant.

This may be caused by our bad experiences with conflicts. Besides that, we may not want to open up ourselves to others as we are not familiar with each other. It may also be because everyone wants to respect each other hence we try not to oppose or offend others. Furthermore, our inexperience and lack of confidence may also cause us to have the thought that our ideas or opinions are not useful.

One possible solution is to encourage teammates to express their views on the topics discussed. This can be done by prompting them questions such as “What are your views on this?”. Another way is to let recessive teammates speak first. This is to show them that their opinions are valuable. An alternative solution is to get everyone’s consensus on the ideas discussed for each sub topic before moving to the next. Therefore we need to allocate more time for discussions in order to utilize these solutions.

Nevertheless, implementing these solutions will lead to disagreements. Hence the team needs to resolve the disagreements as soon as possible. One possible solution is to have a team member recording all the ideas and reason for backing up the ideas. Then the team will review the list of ideas and pick the best idea which suits the situation. If there are still disputes over the best idea, team members may need to compromise or try to combine their ideas.

From my observation, my team members seem to be getting closer to each other after these few months. As the team faces varies challenges, the team matures as one. One good example would be the Oral Presentation 2 (OP2). The team was put to a test during the question and answer session. Due to different perspectives for the features of our software, the team did not pass the test. Fortunately, the team had a discussion to review OP2 immediately after it. The team also sorted out the differences during the following meet up. I also noticed that more opinions are shared and we are slowly revealing our true selves. Therefore, the team has started to progress in terms of overcoming this challenge.

In conclusion, it is important that team members express their oppose views. Though this may cause disputes, it is a process the team has to go through in order to mature. The team should iron out the disputes well and early to prevent accumulation of problems.

References

Academic Leadership Support. (n.d). Retreived from http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/onlinetraining/resolution/aboutwhatisit.htm

Paul Anderson. (2010, May 20). Don’t Avoid Conflicts; Manage Conflicts using Conflict Resolution to Make Better Teams. Articles Factory. Retrieved from http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/management/dont-avoid-conflicts-manage-conflicts-using-conflict-resolution-to-make-better-teams.html

Blog #1 - Communication and Team Behaviour

Communication occurs two ways between two or more people verbally and non-verbally. It can be understood differently by different people based on their experiences and knowledge. In this blog, I will be recording and analyzing the observations of my team’s discussions from my perspective.

To begin with, I observed that my team has exhibited an important principle of effective communications, active listening. My team dedicates full attention to the speaker who is sharing his ideas. While listening to the speaker, team members respect the speaker by demonstrating positive body language such as nodding and giving eye contact. After the sharing session, questions are asked to clarify doubts or main points are rephrased to affirm the meaning. Most importantly, at any one time, there is only one speaker. Though the team did not set this ground rule, team members intuitively comply with it.

In addition, my teammates participate in meetings very actively. They are prepared to share their ideas and thoughts. They are also willing to listen to others’ opinions and internalize it. As such, many interesting ideas are proposed thus, the discussions are successful.

Nevertheless, it is inevitable that every team will face difficulties. During the first meeting, the team struggled with the focus of the meeting. There was a slight dispute over whether the team should focus on graphic user interface or the features to be implemented in the project. I was astonished when Yu Kai mentions that the team should focus on the features in a serious tone with a straight face as I perceived that as anger. The team responded in a normal tone hence it did not lead to a serious disagreement. The team came to an agreement of focusing on features as it forms the foundation for designing systems based on Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC); a process of creating systems.

I also observed that our first meeting took longer than expected as more time is necessary to complete the discussions and settle administrative matters. Furthermore, the team went off topic to talk about other assignments of CS2103T module. It is also hard to allocate tasks due to insufficient understanding of individual team members. From this, I realized that my team is lack of a systematic way to handle meetings.

To conclude, I have gained a better understanding of my teammates through the discussions we had. I noticed that everyone has their own way of expressing their thoughts through verbal and non-verbal communications. In the case of Yu Kai, speaking in a serious tone and straight face is his normal way of communicating with others. While Zhenyang nods his head and smile when he agrees to a certain idea.

Also, I am grateful for my teammates’ willingness to comprise their break times for meetings despite their busy schedules. For this reason, I would like to propose three improvements to reduce ineffective discussions. Firstly, we need to settle administrative matters and lay the pipelines for communicating and sharing documents as soon as possible. Secondly, we need to allocate a time keeper to ensure that meetings are not over run. Lastly, we need to allocate a person to keep the team focus on the topics for discussion.

My teammates' blogs

Pan Zhenyang: http://pan-zhenyang.blogspot.com/

Sathish S/O Ramani: http://rsathishx.blogspot.com/

Tan Yu Kai: http://tyk89.blogspot.com/

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