DMD Kick-Off Week: Evaluation & Improvements

During this week some teamwork skills needed improving in our team.

Communication
During this week, I discovered that it was sometimes difficult to communicate with others. This was due to the English language proficiency of the international students in our team. Sometimes this made it difficult to understand or explain information and could have easily lead to mis-understandings within the team. Moreover there seemed to be a difference in curriculum and teaching meaning that there was significant gaps in software knowledge making it difficult to explain what was needed for our project. Luckily this wasn't a significant issue and we were able to understand each other most of the time.

The team communicated using WhatsApp which wasn't an optimal platform for this type of communication.

Pros
Using WhatsApp was useful for:

• Immediately knowing who had received and seen each message - as a delivery report is displayed
• Sharing quick communications/updates to the team e.g. room and time changes
• Creating a group so that communications could be with all members in one place
• Immediately being notified when a member sends a message to the group

Cons
Using WhatsApp wasn't as useful for:

• Delivering important information such as research
• Sharing work without sending a lot of files which may became difficult to find in the chat conversation
• Commenting on work in a systematic way
• Sending large files or different file formats

Moreover not all members had WhatsApp already downloaded and would have to download this app specifically for the project. WhatsApp also relies heavily on an internet connection and having enough phone battery (As the web version only works when the mobile has battery).

Additionally these members weren't as responsive on WhatsApp as this wasn't the platform they were used to using or pay a lot of attention to. Therefore due to these reasons, I communicated with some members by texting them important information instead. This in itself is a problem because I wasn't able to text the whole WhatsApp conversation to them and therefore they couldn't be fully involved in online discussions.

Solving these problems

An immediate way to solve these problems is to communicate using a web platform that is accessible from a mobile and a computer. In future I will insist on using Trello or Slack to delegate tasks, share documents easily and to discuss important information/research so that all members of the team could be involved equally.

Workload
Tasks were delegated relatively well to other members however this could have been done more effectively using a more appropriate communication tool e.g. Trello or Slack. Some members had a larger workload than others due to these members being able to attend workshops and lectures. It was difficult to give a larger or a more technical workload to members that were unable to attend as they wouldn't be able to grasp the full understanding of the tasks given. Moreover more technical aspects were already started in class, and therefore would be difficult for them to finish these tasks without prior knowledge.

Idea
There was confusion due to the vagueness of the topic given and confirming this early on would have been beneficial to our teams project. Due to time constraints, we were not able to user test our interactive prototype which meant we couldn't gain other teams opinions on our app idea or be given improvements to work on which may have improved the overall outcome of our app.