1. From personal experience, I had about a year's worth of project management experience. With my current job, we traffic daily projects between our design team and our clients for advertisements and promotions including T.V. commercials, billboards, posters and the like.
I believe that among the discussions we have had this year, the Case Study-Google Doc thread was the most helpful. It helped us to organize our thoughts and our files for the group project, as well as give everyone open access to email communications and up-to-the-minute updates on progress. The least helpful thread was where we had a hiccup in the Module 5 discussion thread. While the thread further established the group's relationship and each person's role, it could have been established better.
Within the group, my main goal was to try and answer all questions or communications directed to me as quickly, honestly and collectively as possible. Especially with online communications, sometimes words can be misconstrued as something else, which is why I tried to communicate often. As we moved along each discussion, I could feel the group improving individually and as a whole with regards to replying to posts and raising each other up. I am not sure from the group yet, but if we had to start this process over again I wouldn't change too much. The only thing that comes to mind would be to clearly establish communications, roles and participants from the onset.
2. Before the semester began, I had leadership experience but not necessarily project management experience. I knew how to lead a team, make action plans, and motivate members to achieve goals. But I was never apart of any project management processes. But throughout the class I was able to connect topics from the text to my real life experience. I think this helped me relate better to the topics and be able to apply these concepts to my current and future jobs.
I can't speak for all my team members, but the discussion that helped me the most was the week 5 discussion. I felt that it was a great discussion amongst the team and many viewpoints were presented. The Case Study thread we created was essential for us to communicate with each other about the project, what was done, what needed to be done, etc. This brought team members together and made the project go a lot smoother.
My main goal throughout the semester was to be as available as possible for my team members and produce the best work possible. I hate letting people down and I do not want to be the member who does not contribute to the work, therefore I tried my best and did what I could to not let the team down. I think our team did a great job of establishing roles and communicating effectively. I would not really change anything if we were to do it all over again.
3. Before the semester began, I didn't have any experience besides working in the groups within the school projects. All of those projects experiences were a great addition to my skill set but for the IS class and online project, I felt I gain more understanding of how to engage, manage time and deliver material.
I would single out the discussion for Week 5, Ch 5 Discussion 5: Difficult Deliverables/PERT/Time. This discussion was crucial when it came to a group project. All the team members were focused and knew how to deliver a significant result throughout the whole project.
Things like online threads and quick responses from each group members were important and played a major role while working on the group project. Even though the class was online and communication within the group was limited and dependent on wabcampus the whole group did a great job addressing every issue and mitigate the risk of losing a team member and taking on their responsibilities. Online services like Google docs and slides had a huge impact to keep up a good work and deliver a great result.
Overall I'm very proud to be the part of group 5. All group members showed respect and the great responsibility for completing the project. It was a great experience and great pleasure to work my group members.
4. Before the semester began, how much experience was there in your group with project management?
Not a whole lot of experience. Most of us had some form of management experience form our jobs, but not real heavy with projects. For me, I don't have management experience.
Which discussion throughout the semester helped your group the most, which one helped the least and why for both?
The main ones I noticed that helped us was Chapters 6 and 7. I noticed that everyone in chapter 6 had experience dealing with arguing and being understood. Most of our group were leaning towards open communication and having a balancing act with our confrontations. We ended up using these methods in one of our group posts of thread leader. After those open discussions we had of disagreements we learned a lot of how to communicate conflict. This came especially useful in Chapter 7. Chapter 7 dealt with technical competency and management competency. Chapter 6 helped us better understand these aspects because we were able to see advantages of both and better figuring out the qualities of either or. The new that helped the least was chapter 13. I felt we all ended posting way too fast and we all came up with roughly the same conclusion.
What are the things you did within your group to improve your group relationships? The great thing we did that had impact if any did progressing through the course was have an argument with different views. That and falling behind deadlines.
What impact if any did progressing through the course content have on influencing your group processes and/or group dynamics? What helped us was exchanging of ideas and see which type of management works.
What are thoughts from group members about what you would change about your group process if you could do it over again? I would definitely like keep a more open agenda going so we can finish things on time.