Life Skill

LC 131Z - TCS Teamwork Reflection Journal 3
Topic: Working In A Team
Venkatachalam Kaleswari (P0969172)
Course: Diploma in Bioelectronics
Class: DBE 1B01

1. Among the 7 teamwork tips listed in the article, which 3 do you think are the most important, and why? Explain your choices by elaborating on your teamwork experiences in SP so far (eg. for IDEA, IE, TCS).
The most important tips are:
Never miss a meeting: To ensure not to miss out any discussion/conversation or information that had been shared/exchange among the group members. It will also help to know what is happening like task that are incomplete and need to be completed. Having the presence of group members displays the enthusiasm. Help to contribute your part if willing to do. So that projects can be done on time. Also able to know how much work load are being shared among the group.
So far my teamwork experience in Singapore Polytechnic has improved. Before starting off with a project, we will come up with a weekly plan schedule in order to complete the task accordingly and in sequence. I learnt to have a proper time management like for example in IDEA module, every week a presentation is given to work on. I’ll have my own planning schedule so I can do as it goes.

Ask question: To ensure that a team’s purpose and objectives are clear. It will show the eagerness to learn and the amount of contribution given. Because I feel the more questions we ask, the better idea we get to work/start on and also know what I am doing as I go along. This will help to reduce the work loads that are unnecessary in a project. Having a not clear criteria of a project will lead to incomplete assignment or may even end up having too much complicated work done which will not be understood later on if it has to be presented.
My experiences about this particular tip on IE have made me improved and learn from my mistakes. IE module is mainly about hands on skills. By asking questions helps me and my team mates to gain a better understanding on what we are suppose to do so that we do not mess up with each other’s work.

Contribute your ideas: Having said earlier, contributing ideas will display a positive attitude like it shows our involvement in what we are doing. Contributing ideas will help to analyze the work/problem faster and quicker in order to complete the task. It will also help us to be more creative as we go along with a project.

My experience in TCS has helped me think out of the box. No matter the ideas make sense or not, we will just write it down. After jotting it, we will try to think of an application that the idea can be applied. What I believe is sometimes a senseless idea may end up having a good or unexpected result.

Among the 7 teamwork tips listed in the article, 2. Which 3 do you personally find difficult for yourself to do when you are in your team? The three teamwork tips I personally find difficult for myself to do when I am in my team are Never miss a meeting , Create a process for resolving conflict and Avoid working with friends if you can help it.

* What do you think are the reasons behind those difficulties? * How have your difficulties affected the performance of your team(s)?

Reasons behind difficulties in Never miss a meeting: Reasons for Never miss a meeting are being very tired after a long day of lessons, sometimes other events may clashes with the meeting we planned for discussion and a little laziness meaning having a false thought that assignment can be somehow completed last minute. Explain your choices by elaborating on your teamwork experiences in SP so far (e.g. for IDEA, IE, TCS) Experience and how performance affected on Never miss a meeting: For IE module, meetings are one of the main priorities. Likewise for IDEA and TCS, every week a task is given and it is not that difficult to complete before deadline. But for IE, a project is given six months to complete so sometimes we will think as there are more time to do it slowly. Normally we hardly miss meeting but in fact we intend to postpone or sometimes cancel the meeting throughout. This leads in doing a last minute work which is incomplete or overwritten, errors and unable to hand in the task on time. Reasons behind difficulties and performance affected in Creating a process for resolving conflict: Lack of attention meaning some team members don’t bother to care even if it is their own fault. I find it hard to solve when conflict arises by not getting enough attention from the person who involve. By telling both sides fault still doesn’t help as after awhile if another problem arise, they intend to link with the previous problem. This will affect the team itself as it will break the bond of togetherness. Confidence will be lost and ignorance may occur. This is not a healthy attitude in a team. It will affect the completion of project too. Experience on Avoid working with friends if you can help it: There was this incident during idea project, one of the project team members didn’t contribute much and then he complain as there were not much information given to him. But he refused to attend the meeting by giving excuses. Disagreement occurs and in the end we tried to make him realize his mistake. Reasons behind difficulties and performance affected in Avoid working with friends if you can help it: Some reasons are gossiping may occur as I won’t be able to finish the task on time. I don’t see the group will be able to move on if this continues as all of this will affect the project work. Time is precious and we need to value it so it should not be wasted. Instead of chatting about other things, we may focus on project first.

Experience on Avoid working with friends if you can help it: There was this time where we planned to discuss about a project and ended up chatting about topics that was unrelated. But we managed to realize that we are wasting our time and then switch back to project discussion.