COVID-19 Response: Reflecting on Project Development Challenges in Education

Introduction

This report offers a reflection on some of the issues that our group faced in the process of developing its project. As mentioned, our group consisted of the members who came together to create a project that would enhance effective response towards the challenges faced as a result of COVID-19 in the educational sector. Broadly, the COVID-19 and issues associated with it created an opportunity for our team to think of a solution to ensure the safety of students returning to schools and reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading between children. Through teamwork, therefore, we designed a Smart Shield that would play a critical role in protecting the learners when returning to schools from COVID-19. Notably, the equipment is created and equipped with advanced features such as built-in sensors that can send special sounds or peeps if students are close to each other to warn them to keep a proper distance. Overall, it is anticipated that the shield will guide and remind students to follow precautionary instructions to avoid the spreading of COVID-19. While it is evident that the entire process of the design and development of the Smart-Shield was a success, there were several concerns among the team, which partly or wholly affected its operation. For instance, there were several challenges that the team faced. As a result, the team had to incur tremendous resources in terms of times, financial, and intellectual to address them effectively. This report will, therefore, provide a discussion of the challenges faced in the group, and the team discussed the problem positively. It also discusses the impact it had on our business idea and business prospects. Finally, it explains how the team would approach each stage differently in the future.

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Nature of the Challenges the Team Faced

Coordination Challenges

Our group work in the quest to design develop the Smart Shield offered me tremendous insights into some of the challenges a team can face in college or any process of learning. Group work is often vital and thriving. Unfortunately, I learned that groups could end up being less instead of more than the sum of the parts. One major challenge that occurred in the group was the challenges of coordination, and the group had to incur the coordination costs as a result. Broadly, the coordination costs offer a representation of the time and energy that the group work consumes the individual work does not consume that. Ideally, the team faced hurdles in scheduling for meetings, arranging meetings, meeting, correspondence, and making collective decisions. Additionally, it was not easy to integrate the contribution of one another to affect the overall performance and the output of the team. Although the coordination costs were not high, the elements constituting these challenges could not be eliminated. In our cases, the coordination costs were high and were not factored into the structure of the group assignment. As a result, the team tended to miss the deadlines, and experienced poor integration of work from each member. Moreover, motivation suffered significantly, leading to a tremendous decrease in creativity.

It is also important to note that the task interdependence and the heterogeneity further contributed to the coordination. About the task interdependence, our group members were highly reliant on one another throughout the stages. As a result, the group incurred higher coordination costs than a task that allowed them to divide and conquer. In the same way, the group’s heterogeneity tended to raise the coordination costs, mainly based on the different skills to integrate and the differences in the cultural bridge. However, the group took advantage of the diversity issues and thus reduced the costs associated with the challenges.

Limited motivation among the Group members

The limited motivation among the members of the group constituted to another challenge. Ideally, the group had to incur high motivation costs as part of the project. Broadly, the motivation involves adverse impacts on students faced when working in groups (Oliveira et al., 2011, p.1349). In our case, this challenge was mainly caused by several factors. Firstly, the free-riding tended to occur and involved the departure of one or more group members, leaving all the work to few, more diligent members. Some members of the group were fond of going while the discussion proceeded. It led to the erosion of the long-term motivation of the hardworking members. Secondly, the limited motivation was further exacerbated by the social loafing, which involved the tendency of the group members to exert less effort than what is expected of them. The reduced accountability mainly caused it (Saavedra, 2013, p. 9). Finally, the member’s conflict within the group eroded the morale leading to the withdrawal of some members.

Lack of Creativity in Some Members

Creativity forms an integral component of group success. Without appropriate creativity skills, teamwork is likely to fail. Ordinarily, creativity inspires the group members to work with one another. Through design, the creative process encourages collaboration, as this is the most vital benefit involved in the learning environment. The bond of the team is helpful in the engagement among the learners. Although the team’s work was mainly dominated by creativity, few members demonstrated a lack of it. Not only did this affect the overall activities, but it also reduced the entire productivity of the group. The group was mainly influenced by groupthink, which referred to as the tendency if groups to conform to the perceived majority view. Secondly, the escalation of commitment affected the group’s goal as members were more committed to their plans and strategies, even the ineffective ones for some time.

How the Team Addressed the Challenges

As mentioned, the challenges faced by the group imposed numerous restrictions and issues that somehow prevented it from achieving its goals. However, I learned that problems form an essential component of any group and should never be avoided—the challenges faced in this case revolved around limited coordination, motivation, and limited creativity.

To enhance maximum coordination among the team members, we decided to keep the group size small. This strategy helped facilitate proper discussion and participation. The group also designated some extra time for group discussion, thereby not interfering with the normal class time. In the same way, the group decided to use its resume and skills inventories to assist teams in delegating the subtasks. Thus, the group had to build communication and conflicts solutions skills actively. Ideally, effective communication and communication skills helped us interact harmoniously. It also enabled us to designate time in the project schedule for the group to integrate part.

Various solutions were also worth to address both the pre-existing and potential motivation challenges in the group. Firstly, the team leader explained to us why working in groups was worth the frustration. Ideally, the leader further established the explicit explanations of each group member and set ground rules as well as using the team contacts. Each member had to develop his or her accountability through the combination of the group assessments with the individuals’ assessments. Undeniably, this created room for comparison, more research, and integration of various contents. In addition to these solutions, the team leader further encouraged the teaching of conflict resolution skills and supported them by role-playing responses to the hypothetical team conflict scenarios. Finally, each member was encouraged to assess oneself through periodic process reports, self-evaluations, and peer-evaluation. Not only was this important in helping each member identify their strengths, but also their weaknesses, and in turn, found ways of addressing those weaknesses.

It was also critical to reduce the intellectual costs and maximize the creativity and productivity of the group. The design and development of the Smart Shield needed a lot of creativity and innovation from the team members. Notably, the effectiveness of the shield and its ability to perform all the required functionalities relied on the strength of the team to think creatively and innovatively to come with unique equipment. As part of enhancing the group’s creativity, we proceeded to the group’s brainstorming, thereby allowing members to think and meditate about some of the possible improvements to be done on the equipment. The forestall groupthink was also critical in helping the group generate and consider other different ideas. The group believed that a variety of designs was better based on the fact that it allowed selecting from the many available options. Finally, encouraging the group members to reflect on and highlight their contributions in the periodic self-evaluations was much criticism in the development and design of the smart shield. It was, therefore, possible to assign roles to the group members to reduce conformity and promote the group intellectually.

Impact on a business idea and business prospects

As mentioned earlier, challenges in an organization or team cannot be avoided. A number of studies have shown difficulties help strengthen the team when addressed adequately and promptly (Adair, 2009, p. 34). It is known that dysfunctional teams are not always successful. In most cases, they become demotivated and consequently deliver reduced output or results. Although the group faced enormous challenges, I believe that it was an opportunity to gain insights on how excellent we were able to navigate and maneuver our ways through finding better approaches towards solving and preventing any future happenings (Burke, 2011, p. 93).

Insights in taking the pain of the meetings

The challenges posed numerous impacts on our business idea and business prospects. It taught us that successful projects require planning to make sure that there is a clear agenda, which is relevant to all the group members. It provided insights regarding a clear focus on the results that the team wanted to achieve. Moreover, the challenges enabled us to understand the necessity of using the time effectively and making it a rule that each team member read before rather than during the valuable group work.

The challenges were crucial in providing insights regarding the significance of delegation in teamwork. Delegation is an example of challenging the mindset of a given individual. Within the context of the design and development of the Smart Shield, it was essential to assign each member a specific portion of the project to research, handle, and deliver to the group. It was noticed that learning the art of delegation raised the performance of the team and offered the members the time to focus on more decisive and strategic issues. Undeniably, it was an excellent way of developing the organization. The team was, therefore, able to explain the outcome of different project tasks and the key deliverables, but also ask the other team members for the ideas on how they can develop.