Colin Stock

#s3922272

Throughout the past weeks working in this team has taught me a lot about team work and project planning and management. Though there were some challenges throughout the process everyone stepped up to their own sections of work and helped out where necessary. A clear goal was set at the beginning to achieve the best possible results for our goal and everyone was motivated and eager to achieve this. A slight improvement could have been better communication by me to the rest of the team, lack of this resulted in some tensions between the team and a member who left late into the project period.

One thing that surprised me is the power of a good organizational tool, such as Kanban. This tool we used in Microsoft Teams and it allowed the designation of tasks to be allocated and then ticked off when completed. This made it incredibly easy to keep track of who has done what and of what deadlines are coming up for everyone. One thing I learnt about groups is that cohesion and communication is extremely important. When members get frustrated or upset with each other it’s important to resolve these issues quickly and as politely as possible. Though some situations arose, solutions where swift and the group feels more like a bunch of friends than strangers now.

Gesina Sands

#s3921234

Reflecting upon my time in this group for the duration of Assessment 3 and 5 I have had a very positive and rewarding experience. Everyone in the group’s goals is aligned and that has made it easy to work towards a shared goal. During team meetings everyone was respectful and kind of each other letting each person have time to express their thoughts on a subject. We were able to joke around a lot as well as being productive and working hard.

Areas where I think we have improved on would be even more thorough planning at the onset of the project as well as more extensive use of the Kanban board system. Further improvements that could be made would be to streamline some of the meetings where we are not needing to go into great detail, by following a stand-up meeting style structure.

Each group member was able to have open and honest discussion about their weekly progress as well as asking for help. As a team we were able and willing to help each other with tasks as well as provide detailed feedback to help each other produce our best possible work.

Overall, I had a very positive and productive group experience and have not only had a rewarding experience academically, but also have made friends who may one day become colleagues in the IT sector.

Liane Wong

#s3923671

Personally, my overall perception of this group is overwhelmingly positive. I am especially grateful to have experienced working with my teammates as they have not only enriched my learning experience but have encouraged me to always reach further. Every team member communicated candidly with each other due to our similar personalities and common goal, which unhindered our progress. We were also able to explore out-of-the-box ideas quite often without objections due to the team’s genuine eagerness to learn and curiosity. Expanding that, every member was very dedicated and focused at completing their tasks and happy to assist another member if they encounter difficulties.

Improvements could be made in accountability as I felt that because our personalities were very similar, we share the independence trait. Team members are often too enthusiastic in completing tasks without communicating exactly what they are doing, which led to minor realignments in planning. Another potential improvement is that team processes could be simplified, the team could have employed more use of Microsoft Teams. More details and information could have been communicated through posts or chats without having long meetings.

Being in a different group in the assessment before this, I would say that it helps to have teammates who share a common need to be excellent in everything they do. Because of this, most of the team’s work is executed with effort and passion. The surprising thing I have then learned is that, when a team’s goals are aligned, great results can be achieved.

In conclusion, being in this group, I have not only gained the learning experience but have gained friends with similar interests and ambitions in life.

Michail Christofis

#s3923089

This group assignment was immensely pleasurable in a multitude of different ways. In the group we did not consider each other as strangers, or even as team mates, but rather as a form of family, where we are all striving to achieve a common goal, and we are all there to support each other. During this group assignment, I did the entire backend of the project, wrote auto html generators and web scrapers as artefacts, and created the application website, whilst simultaneously making sure that it retained nearly all functionalities described. Moreover, the artefacts and website which I created totaled off at 100,000 lines of code, and I also wrote up multiple essays which were assigned to me. Due to these facts, I feel I contributed well to the team.

Throughout the project, I felt like my team mates were people that I could trust, people which I enjoyed working with. Despite initially having reservations about group work, after A3, I feel that it can, given the right conditions, end up being an amazing experience. I never had a problem with any team member and feel that we always understood each other implicitly. Without a doubt, this project has helped me personally in a plethora of different ways, contributing to my personal growth, through the vast amounts of knowledge and experience, in both team work and research, that I gained through it.

Samuel Saad

#s3922640

Proceeding my thorough assessment of the A3 group experience, I can only express my gratitude to each member of the group, as they not only completed each task allocated to them to the best of their ability, but continually offered their assistance to any group member that may have been experiencing a high load. Our common interests and goals enabled us to not only work in complete harmony, but develop mutually beneficial friendships that only enabled us to collaborate better.

I personally believed that group work was always a burden and should be avoided at all costs, this was due to fear of certain team members being unable to complete as much work as allocated to them, therefore, another must take their load, thus compromising the quality of the work overall. These past weeks and the sweet collaboration that took place only made me realise that my assumptions and presuppositions could not have been further from the truth.

In conclusion, I personally am exceptionally satisfied with the team, each team member brought a significant personality to it and, I not only have exited this journey with a completely different view on team work, but have carried along new mutually beneficial relationships and friendships that will hopefully last a significant time.