Reflections of another…

The team work process for me has overall been quite a challenging experience. I have learnt a lot about myself and also about other people.  Firstly I think it is important to remember that when you go into a team work environment there are lots of different approaches team members will take to completing team work.  I also think it is unrealistic to think that the team work process is the number one priority for each team member. As with any aspect of our lives there are many outside influencing factors that both directly and indirectly affect our performance.

Primarily what I have learnt about myself working in a team environment is that while I don’t need to have absolute control over how tasks are completed I do like to have some say and input into how things are done. I also feel that I have a tendency to disengage and become unmotivated if from my point of view the group is working ineffectively or not to their full potential.

I’ve learnt a lot about my role in a team during this process. Primarily I’ve learnt that I tend to take on various roles throughout the life of a team project, sometimes taking a leadership role and other times sitting back and contributing what is required. I’ve noticed that I am more effective working with people I engage with and feel comfortable with and am more likely to work at a high standard.

The implications of this for me in the future are quite clear. It is essential for me to develop strategies to get to know and feel comfortable with other team members I work with in the future. This I feel will create a more harmonious supportive working environment which I find more conducive to hard work. The other implication is to determine how I can work effectively even if I don’t relate well to other team members. This is probably one of the hardest strategies to develop and is something most people probably struggle with

In terms of the progress of the assignment delegating tasks seemed to be an effective way to cover the workload. However, I feel that our team meetings tend to be not as effective as they could be firstly because some team members don’t come and secondly because we don’t spend enough time working out everything that needs to be done before delegating tasks. This tends to mean that some components of the task are overlooked. I’ve learnt so far that it is much harder to work in a group with people you are less familiar with. I think because you don’t know each other very well you are less likely to provide constructive criticism and discuss ideas and approaches you just want to get in and get out as quickly as possible. I think this is the difference between group work and team work. At the moment we are operating as a group. Group work seems to be more like everyone does their own little bit and then adds it together for the final product i.e. the outcome is the output time by the amount of group members. Team work on the other hand seems to be a more inclusive process where everyone works together to achieve the outcome which is far greater than that of the individual output x by the amount of team members.