On our team's problems

We, being a multi-culture group, have been going through half of the semester. At the moment, I'm glad that we have done our job well. I have good experience working with you. And more time spending with you, I have more chance to realize some problems which we can improve. I want to have a clear sight into it.

First of all, we are lucky to be in a group where every member is strong in IT. However, that also means that we have to consider clearly to choose the best idea when discussing something. Let's take the GUI meeting for an example. When discussing about the features and how the GUI should look like, we have a lot of different ideas, all are interesting. I understand that you have good knowledge in IT and always have some solution to a problem, but if we can listen to each other and understand him a bit better, then perhaps we could have come up with more interesting ideas in our project.

This is a common problem faced by all teams, when all member are good at something in common, and it can be definitely resolved. We should listen to each other's ideas carefully and understand its pros, cons before we make any comments on that. We are all doing heavy work in this semester: Zhou Jun taking 8 modules, the other 3 taking CS2010, which requires a lot of coding efforts, so we don't have much time for meeting. Perhaps at this moment, each of us have personal stuff to do. Like me, I'm working on a NUSSU project and working part-time. But in the next weeks, when we have come to the coding stage, I think we have to meet more regularly and by then, we should have more time to discuss problems more carefully.

It is not something very serious and I think we can resolve it. It is a common problem that must be solved in order to improve teamwork ability. We're a great group, doing a great job and I believe we can pass all problems and go further in this project if we put more effort.

Insights into one of our problems

As I had pointed out earlier (in my previous blog post), being a team of like-minded people helped us gel as an outfit in the early half of the semester. We were to find out later that this by itself was one of our biggest shortcomings.

Let me expand on this problem. All of us are alike on many different fronts. Both while separating topics for our oral presentations as well as dividing responsibilities for our project, we found out that all of us were intent on taking up similar tasks/responsibilities. This was because our skill sets overlapped significantly. All of us are good programmers, natural leaders, speakers more comfortable while presenting topics with heavy content rather than abstract ones and so on. This is a problem as it restricts our variety to a great extent. An even bigger problem arises when we are left with no choice but to pick tasks outside of our comfort zone. This is bound to happen as we need to do a variety of subtasks for each submission with limited resources at hand.

We could solve this problem by proposing a system wherein a person can ask for what he/she wants and will be assigned the task on a first cum first serve basis. Still, this solution does not work fairly as team members who are extroverts tend to gain an advantage over others as they are the ones who generally speak out first. A possible advantage of this system is that it gives the silent members of the team an incentive to speak out thereby indirectly enhancing their communication skills. The least we could do is to ensure that the same guy does not suffer every time.

Every coin has two sides. Even this problem has helped us in certain ways. We were forced to move out of our comfort zones on a few occasions and hence were exposed to newer things. In this process, we had an opportunity to explore newer arenas which may be to our liking. I am quite sure that we wouldn’t have taken the pains to experiment otherwise and thus wouldn’t have realized our full potential.

Personally, I feel that I have gained a lot in this process. Opening presentations was not my forte. I now feel more confident when I am opening presentations. If I had been given the choice, I wouldn’t have opened presentations and thus would not have realized that I actually like it.

This problem – a result of our team composition – cannot be avoided but can definitely be resolved. It is our responsibility as a team to ensure that no team member suffers extensively because of a conflict of interest. I can tell that we are proceeding in the right direction from the way we have split tasks for our upcoming submissions. Hope that this good work continues!

We need to make more efforts

We, as a wonderful group, have gone through half the semester. I do believe that we have done a really good job and everything goes well. However, since we are trying our best to be the best group, I still want to point out an aspect we can improve, which is the effort we make for this project.

In this semester, every one of us has a very heavy workload from other modules. I have 8 modules to study and the other three take CS2010, which is difficult and requires a lot of programming efforts.  As a result, we have to spend less time and efforts on this project. However, this project is really important and need more time and efforts.

We must first keep in mind that this project is related to both CS2101 and CS2103, which worth 8 MCs. With so many MCs, it deserves more time and efforts. Moreover, for most of us, this project is the first time we work like real software engineers and we can learn a lot about software development. This opportunity is quite important for us and we should try our best to learn as much as possible.

This project has no quizzes and weekly progress requirements, but this does not mean we can spend less time on it. Since the total workload is almost fixed for us, if we do less now, we need to make up in the future. Then, the project can become a final week project and we need to rush a lot. As a result, the quality is low and we have to interrupt our plan of other modules. This is quite terrible and we should try to avoid it by completing tasks as early as possible. Therefore, we need to make more efforts on it.

Now we have come to the stage of coding, which is the most important part of the project. I hope we can spend more time working together, discussing problems and communicating. We may have to squeeze the time of other modules, but the project worth it. I think the meeting today is quite a good beginning. By the two-hour meeting, we have made clear of the components we need to implement in version 0.1 and the parts for everyone to code. As the work gets more complicated, we really need to work more on this project, programming, writing reports, discussing problems, etc.

Now we have fell behind many groups in progress since we did not do any extra works, but it is still under control. Let’s work more from now on and catch up. I do believe we will do an excellent job for this project in both CS2101 and CS2103. 

A Particular Problem Faced By The Team

There are many challenges and problems the team faced during this period of time. And as our team approaches the halfway mark of the project, I would like to highlight this particular problem that I as the team leader feels the team should address.

And the problem is, the team is too casual and laid-back at times. While this can be a good thing but at the same time it can be disastrous as well. Our team's laid-back and casual approach is most likely caused by our very own doing and that is our own abilities. Our team is very fortunate to have every member being strong in a lot of areas of work in the project. And this leads to the emerging problem of being too casual and laid-back. Members of the team have been excelling in the task that are assigned or handed out to them. As a result the team started to develop a laid-back and casual stance. This problem might develop and become difficult to overcome or to handle in the future. I felt that being this laid-back might be harmful to the progression of the team in the future and might really be detrimental in the long run. As we approach the toughest phase of the project, being this laid-back and casual would only harm the quality of the work that is produced.

However being casual and laid-back can be a positive thing as well. Being casual and laid-back allows the team to remain calm and not to panic when the going gets tough. Since everyone in the team is confident of their abilities and the work they have produced so far has been of great quality, being laid-back and casual might actually be a positive thing to the team.

To be this casual and laid-back allow the team to look at things in a bigger perspective. To come up with ideas or ways to solve a problem. Unconventional ways that could have easily solve the problem could be thought of in a less stressful environment.

Being laid-back and casual allow team members to express their views freely. This is a good thing given that a lot of creativity is needed and is involved in the project. Competition is tough, with all the groups in the module developing the same program. Therefore to beat the other groups out there, is to come up with something different, creative and intuitive. With this current attitude of the team, it allows the team not to be affected by the tough competition out there. But rather to have full focus on our own project. The high level of competition does not get to us and as a result every team member is happy and focused on his job.

However so, this problem has solutions to it. One of the many solutions to this problem is to encourage the team to strive to be the very best. To make use of this casual and laid-back attitude of ours to our advantage. Being the team leader I would want to motivate the team members to beat the best group out there. By doing this, it does not crank or jack up the stress level of the team and at the same time overcomes the problem. This is just one of the many possible solutions to the problem.

Having presented this problem, I would like to close with this. It is good to instill some urgency into the project group. To always keep the team on its toes and to be the best team out there. This is to prevent the team from taking this laid-back and casual approach to the other end of the highway.

Shawn Teo Chee Yong

On Inter-Cultural Communication and Reflection on Team Behaviour

As a member of a diversity team like ours, I have some feelings about the the intercultural/interpersonal communication.

First of all, I want to mention to respect. As a team with four members from four different contries with different traditions, it's very easy to say something that violates other's culture and that may break the bonding in the team. However, our team members are communicating with each other in a very effective manner. We share the ideas, we joked together without worrying about the others' cultures. When there is a misunderstanding in the team, we found a solution quite quickly and effectively without much arguing. For instance, when I found out that the contents in Shawn's slides and mine are quite similar, we asked Ms. Janet to understand more clearly abou the questions in our topics and that eventually solved the trouble. The way we found out the solution made me think that we were going on the right way.

Second, I want to talk about resonsibility. It's very clear that every of us goes to the team meetings on time and well-prepared for the topics. And even in our oral representation, in the Q&A section, we have done our best to answer the others' questions. Each of us tried to answer the questions on our best, regardless the question is based on whose part. I think this is very nice as each of us not only carer for himself but also cares for the team.

Lastly, I want to say that I'm feeling good about our team. We're going on the right way. I hope you can continue to perform like this in the next hard coming days. I will try to speak more to all of you to understand you better, about your cultures, your countries, and yourselves. And I will speak more to express my ideas, even the smallest ones, not just the important ones, things that may be important to our team, to all of you and I hope you can do the same to me. I think when we are able to communicate with each other at that level, our team and our project will be the best thing we can do.

Keep up the good job, guys!

Inter-Personal/Inter-Cultural Communication and Reflections on our Team Behaviour

Being in a team as diverse as ours, with members from four different nationalities, the importance of interpersonal communication (cultural differences coming into play) is very high. Language – as far as our group is concerned – is not a big problem as all group members are comfortable with English. This saves us a lot of headache as translations are a primary reason for miscommunication. Even with all of us knowing a common language, there were problems initially, especially due to different pronunciations. This difficulty eased out once we got to know and understand each other’s accent better. Let it be me or my team-mates, we made sure that we clarified anything and everything we couldn’t hear or understand properly when someone else is talking. Repeating a sentence or two may seem tedious, irritating and like a waste of time. Believe me; clarifying doubtful things then and there is way better than understanding things differently, causing bigger problems down the line.

A self-driven team is always more successful. Ours is one of them! I have noticed on many occasions that each of us is willing to take up that extra bit of responsibility. Having done our homework research, all of us came well prepared for the meeting. This helps us save a lot of precious time and energy and we could concentrate on our next best steps and a probable agenda for the next meeting and more importantly, scheduling the next meeting.

All of us understood other team members’ constraints. This was evident when we were choosing time slots for the next meeting. None of the team members were placed under undue pressure and eventually we came up with a slot convenient for all of us. Personally, I had that sense of assurance from my teammates and this helped me bond with them better.

The fact that we were able to converge on many things quite easily like division of responsibility for the project, order of speakers for the oral presentation showed that we were moving on in the right direction as far as our team spirit and cohesiveness is concerned. Things which may seem trivial, like backgrounds and fonts for the presentation, are usually issues that are a pain. I am glad we were able to move over those quickly.

Our communications so far have been strictly professional. Taking that extra bit of effort to know team members more personally would improve our synergy and ultimately the quality of work we produce. What about becoming friends on Facebook?

Punctuality is another crucial factor which determines output. As most of our meetings are short and crisp it really helps when people are on time. I regret being late on one occasion when I messed up the location of our meeting point. I’ll make sure I am on time for the rest of our meetings and would really appreciate the same from all of us.

Like everyone else, we have our flaws and I can assure that we are working our way, rapidly, to becoming THE team!

Lakshmi Narasimhan

Inter-Cultural Communication Principles and Team Behaviour

I would like to focus on inter-cultural communication principles and team behaviour since our group is quite an inter-cultural group with four members form Singapore, India, Vietnam and China.

First of all, the most important principle in inter-cultural communication is respect. Actually, every effective communication should be based on respect of each other; otherwise, communication may become quarrels or commands. Since people from different cultural backgrounds may have different values, religions, habits and so on, conflicts may happen more easily. Consequently, respect is even more important in this kind of communication. We may not expect every one to accept the same value, but we should respect and tolerate each other. Let us take Singapore, a multi-cultural country as an example. There are people from many different races and religions in this country and they live together harmoniously. This is the power of respect. 

Secondly, as a group, we should try to learn and understand the culture and value of each other. By knowing others’ cultural backgrounds, we can behave in the manners more acceptable to each other. In addition, learning others’ culture is a good beginning to build the personal friendship between each other. It is difficult to develop friendship if we only communicate about work without any more personal stuff. Thus, we should find some time to talk with each other about our culture and backgrounds as well as other interesting topics to build up the friendship.

Thirdly, humor is an excellent tool in inter-culture communication. With humor, we can solve many problems difficult to deal with formally. However, we must be cautious when we show our humor because people with different cultural backgrounds may have different understanding of the humor. As a result, sometimes, a kind joke can be interpreted as serious offense. Therefore, we should communicate humorously, but cautiously.

Finally, we should never assume when communicating with people from different culture backgrounds. Culture is quite different from one place to another, and some aspects may be just opposite. Thereby, it is dangerous if we often make assumption on others culture. On the contrary, we had better ask if we are not clear with anything. Asking will not only clarify our doubts, but also show our respect to them.

At the end of the blog, I would talk about the performance of our team. I feel the team is operating very well as everyone is quite responsible for his part. As a result, we have successfully followed our plan and finished all the scheduled tasks. However, we must admit that there still exist some culture barriers among us since we come from totally different countries and do not know each other before this module. Thus, we can apply the principles I mentioned previously to step over the barriers. I hope in the following weeks, we are able to get to know each others’ culture better and begin to develop our relationship as friends in addition to colleagues. For instance, we can talk about some interesting things every time before or after our meeting, have lunch or dinner together, and so on.