Group Proposal Project - A Reflection

This semester has been one of the busiest times of my life, with 7 different group projects and reports to work on, some even occurring concurrently. Although there were times when I was really pushed to my limits since I had other work and commitments to juggle too, through these projects and interactions with different groups of people, each with their own unique dynamics and way of doing things, I have indeed gained countless valuable lessons and learnt a lot from the people whom I worked with. The skills I have learnt from ES2007S, particularly, also came in handy as I worked on these projects. In this blog post, I shall focus on the things I learnt from my group proposal project, in which I had the honour of working with two very driven and hardworking people, Prab and Yeap Jun.

During the first meeting when I first met them, I felt confident that the project will go on well. From the way we discussed and narrowed down the topics to work on, I noticed that my teammates were very decisive and initiative, and that motivated me even further throughout the duration of the project to give my best and contribute in whichever way I could, as I know in the back of my mind that we are all in this together and all of us are doing our best.

Among the many things I learnt from them were initiative, drive and speed. Throughout the project, no matter how busy they were, they always manged to work on parts of the proposal and finish their work fast. This made me reflect on my own time management and work speed, since I often prefer to have more time to produce work that is to my satisfaction and well-thought through. Also, I am very particular about details and tend to require time to “feel” and gauge the overall quality of my work, especially when it comes to writing. Hence, in short, I can be rather perfectionist at times. As a result, my rate of work during this proposal project (and in fact for other projects too) was rather slow and I often felt bad for delaying our group, yet I still want to do my best which means more time is needed. However, I am truly grateful for my teammates as they were really understanding and patient with me, and did not rush me to complete my work, which made me more confident of the work I produced. But, I will still work on improving my work speed as I am fully aware that speed is an important quality in the working world.

Decisiveness was another quality I picked up from my teammates. During online meetings while working on our written proposal, I was amazed at how swift they were when they communicated among themselves to confirm certain things with each other during our group chats. We also managed to more or less settle on our topic by the first meeting and thereafter began researching on it. That has really saved a lot of time for us, which is precious considering our heavy workloads. Also, as I mentioned in my first blog post, I once had a group project in which my group and I found it really difficult to settle on a topic, which wasted quite a bit of time, time that could have been put to better use to improve our proposal for instance.

Earlier in September this year, I attended a camp organised by NUS which taught students the 7 habits of highly effective people, based on a book written by late author and educator, Steven Covey. Working on this group project enabled me to personally experience one of the 7 habits, which is to "Seek first to understand, then be understood". This is because whenever any of us needed more time to complete our assigned portion of the proposal due to other pressing assignments, we will inform each other to see if we could postpone our set deadline or meeting. I really like this aspect of our teamwork, in which we were frank with and sought to understand each other.

Lastly, as someone who truly appreciates reassurances and reaffirmation of my work, I am really thankful for my group members’ constant encouragement and reassurances during the project. I felt that these really kept the group going and made communication within our group easier and more open. I recall in Dr Radhika’s slides about interpersonal communication, giving praise where it is due is one of the important essentials for successful group work. This was the first thing that came to my mind and struck me whenever we encouraged each other. Creating a positive communication climate is another important aspect of a successful working relationship, and encouraging one another along is one way of doing so. In my opinion, these ultimately made our overall project a less stressful one to work on.

I have indeed learnt a lot in the course of working on this proposal project, including adjusting my own mindset and way of doing things to suit that of my teammates on top of the aforementioned qualities. I believe that these skills and qualities will definitely come in handy in the future both in school and at work. Once again, thank you Prab and Yeap Jun for all that you have taught me. It has been a pleasure working with you. All the best for our Oral Presentation next Friday, and last but not least, all the best to the other groups too! :)