Self - Refection: Virtual Collaboration - Miranda's (52795601)

 

Introduction



Thirteen weeks of learning journey finally ended. During these weeks, my brain is really over used! Actually, I am poor in creative thinking. I need a lot of time to digest all the ideas from other people.  This is an interesting learning process.

It is not a easy project and it is quite difficult to work with the morning class. We are not working together in face to face and only through Internet. It is really a challenging. Through the advanced technology nowadays, we can pull the distance become closer to perform high collaboration. At the beginning, I have worried about whether the morning class understood or not only through communication in the Internet. But now we are success!


How do I communicate with my teammates?

“Three legged race” members are not always walking along together because we are very busy for our daily work. We see each other during class only. Different kinds of communication give us convenient. We usually use Skype, Whatapps, and E-mail to communicate with each other.

WhatsApps

WhatsApps is the most convenient communication tools nowadays. Wherever you have an idea, I can switch on my smartphone's WIFI or 3G and write out my ideas  and my teammates can read the message immediately. It doesn’t have any limitation on words. It can invite people to chat in group or we can chat in individual. I can send pictures and record my voice and send to them. It is very convenient. Our conversation in WhatApps is not only project; sometimes we can have chatting with each other. It is very effective and convenient.  However, one thing that WhatsApps that cannot do is sent documentation files to my teammates. 

Email

When I cannot send files on WhatsApps or other people cannot available on the Skype. I will use email to send to them. I can write out all the things that I want to say and attached the files. As the technology becomes more advanced, we can send an email through smartphone. So I can follow up our project even I are at work. Therefore, I do not have any time and place limitations to communicate with my teammates.

 

Skype

When we have meeting together, we will use Skype to discuss together. Skype has function with group chat but we can only have voice chat instead of video chat. Video group chat we need to pay for it.   But still it is effective and save a lot of money from the phone calls. Sometimes writing email may also lead misunderstanding. Although we cannot see each other, we can know different members ideas for the project and we can make decision immediately. 

Skype also have problem!! If we do not have good connection for the Internet, we hardly listen to other people talking. For example, one of the members in morning class is not living in China. It is difficult to use Skype to talk to her with poor connection. We need her teammates to inform her about what we have discussed in  Skype.

Technology helps us a lot! I can't imagined if we returned to the days that without WhatsApps and Skype. What do our life now? I think I still torture by spending a lot of time to write emails every night. I can guarantee that our work progress wouldn’t be so fast.

 

 

How can we work as a high performance team?

1. Make good use of everyone’s strengths

I believe team collaboration helps us to know our classmates more such as their personality and thinking. We need to work in the daytime and attend class in the evening. Through the collaborations, we can know our member’s strength and weakness. Samuel is good at creative thinking, Samantha is good at searching information and I good at artwork. So we made good use of everyone strength to work on the project. We divided the work into 3 pieces. i.e ideas thinking, research and making PowerPoint for presentation. I think working in specialization can make the team work more efficiently. Everyone can involve on the project and we will not duplicate to do the work.

 

2.     Time management

We should have a good time management. First of all we need to finish our parts before every virtual meeting.  It is easily to explain to the moring class and the information is organized. It can let people to understand. Afterwards, we will schedule the next meeting date again and what should we need to submit. Making a work plan can help us to know whether the work has behind or not. We hope to have construction meeting everytime.

We have good management for our team. We can submit the work on time. But morning class is a little bit poor in this point. They always finish at the last minutes. If there is any mistake, it is quite difficult for them to mend it. We always keep on tracing them whether they can finish the work or not.


3.     Compromise

As I mentioned above that we have divided the work. This comes out a distance problem. We are not sitting and working together at the same time. I do not know what my teammates searching for the project and what do they think need to input into the project. When we finished our own parts and combine the work together with my teammates, we found there are differences. For example, the contents maybe different with the conclusion.

In order to let the work becomes consistency and give respect on people’s work. We need to discuss to find a compromise which part should amend or omit it. Hence, compromise can help the group to work harmony and high productivity. 


Obstacles in Collaboration

 1.     Conflicts

Conflict A

When we introduce our idea to our morning team, it is a hard work. We spend a lot of time to communicate with them to let them understand. I know the process of the fund raise is a little bit complicated and the morning class is not so familiar about the commercial sector works in Hong Kong. They think that using marathon it doesn’t have something new and it seems like Standard Chartered Bank Marathon. They want to change the bank operated in China because they know the operation of the bank in China. But it will give us problem on the ideas.  As we know, bank operated in China will have limited because there are a lot of complicated transactions and costing would appear and it is not worth for the charities.

We compromised with the morning class that the marathon changes into cycling which is fresh in Hong Kong but the bank should be operated in Hong Kong. Otherwise, we cannot bring out the message that cycling can help the social vulnerable groups in Hong Kong The bank and the sporting company cannot get the good marketing strategy. Finally, two parties agree and then we start to make our blog.

      

Conflicts B

We forgot to think of what should be the company for the bank until the morning class reminded us. We decided to be “Bank of Warmhearted”. I feel a little bit “goose bumps” also!! But it is related to our topics. It is funny that when we told the morning class about the bank name. They think why  should we put a “of” in the middle. “Warmhearted Bank” is easy to remember. I was really laughed so hard when I read this message on the WhatsApps. Because I was wondering why they are so concerning about the grammar instead of concerning how to make the presentation better? I told them they should be concentrate on the topic how it works and not the company name.     

 

 

Conflicts C

The morning class informed us the feedback from professor said our bank is not the unique channel to raise the fund and why not the other commercial sector. They ask us whether it is necessary to change the topic. I was shocked! It is already mid of April. It is impossible for us to change the idea already. I discuss with my teammates about the problem and found out that their PowerPoint is lead misunderstanding for the audiences. They should give out the main points of the ideas and not only why we hold this activity. I told them which are the main points put into the blog. They should explain more about how the bank and sports company works.

2.     Differences in Culture and Background

 

I learnt from that three conflicts and found out we have cultural problem. I realized that they feel difficult to understand because they are not familiar with charity. They feel curious because they seldom hear about raising fund for charities in China. It is difficult for them to understand how do those parties connected to raise fund for the charities. Morning class teammates are quite 'green'. Some basic business concepts they are not so clear of how it works. Therefore, it really gave us difficulty to explain in verbal. Finally, we drew a flow of the idea for them and write all the explanation to let the morning class to understand easier.

3.     Disorientation

We have worried about the morning class whether they can understand the idea and can finish the work at last. We kept on asking them how is there progress. The morning class replied they understand. But three days later they reply they do not understand.   We are really shocked!

At that moment, we felt frustration and disorientation. The morning class really threw us to confusion. We have to think any new idea it is easier for them to understand and fit for the project. But we found "cycling for charities" is the best because it is the easiest and more practical. We decided to continue to use it and we tried to give more patients to explain to the morning team again and again.

4.  Personal Attitude

Sometimes, I feel the morning class teammates are quite stubborn. We keep on negotiate to find a possible solution for both parties to agree the idea of the project. When we agreed all the things before hand, but they changed the discussion items back to the beginning afterwards!! I really faint because of their attitude. If they don't agree on the meeting, they can tell us instead of changing the items again without informing us. I think they should give us respect also.


Three “R”

We do not have any commitments or any promise at all in our group.  But three of us consists “united”. We didn’t have any disagreement in the working process. Everyone is helpful in the group. We just hope to do the work in best! I believe everyone should consist three “R” when they are working in team. They are “Respect”, “Responsible” and “Reliable”.

 

• Respect – Respect different people’s ideas. No matter they are work or not, we shouldn’t have any criticize on their ideas.
• Responsible – Be responsible as a team member. When the other people are hard working on their work, I should also be hard working also. Otherwise it will spoil the whole project and affect our friendship.
• Reliable – If someone gave you a task to work on, you should submit the work on time because other team member may rely on your work so he or she can continue their parts. If there is any delay for the work, it will spoil the schedule.

 

 

Conclusion

Working in team may give inconvenient that we need to organize all the teammates to work. We make good use on people’s strength; we also accommodate people’s weakness. Although virtual meeting helps us a lot, I still prefer face to face meeting. I can talk with the people face to face and I can see whether they are understood what I am saying through their eyes. For giving a message, virtual meeting is fine. But when we need to explain something, it is not a good way.

Anyway, it is good chance for us to learn to work in team. The background of morning class and evening class is different. We are from different places and we can share our experiences. It is a precious time and I have learnt several things.

1. Give Respect on other’s ideas 

Through this project, we know that there are a lot of cultural and background differences between Hong Kong and China’s student. Hong Kong has a great connection in business with China nowadays. We can gain experience to collaborate with the China’s clients in future. This is a great exercise for us to work with them. Although we have some conflicts on the cultural differences, we have tried to find a good solution to overcome the problem. We learnt to respect to different ideas. When people give out their ideas we should listen and do not criticize them. We can be open mind to accept all the ideas. Sometimes it may value added into the original ides. 

2. Technology 

The effective communication is make good use in technology. Through Internet it can shorten the distance for us. Especially the mobile phone nowadays, it can send email and using Skype and WhatsApps. It can let us connect to everyone in every minute. It gives us efficiency so that we don’t need to always to have face to face meeting. It can increase our team cohesion and easily for us to follow up the work by using the technology.

3. Learn to be creative 

 

From this project, I realized that improve creative thinking should need to:

1. Tap ideas from all ranks
2. Encourage and enable collaboration
3. Open the organization to diverse perspective

 

At first I feel it is complicated to understand our project ideas also. I usually work alone at work so I seldom listen to other people ideas. It really narrowed my thinking. When people ask me to think creative, I feel it is a torture. I realize work in group can share experience from others. I can learn their experience from them. Nowadays, a company's most important is creative thinking. I need to enhance my creative thinking it can easily for my job in future.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Albert Einstein

 

 

Finally, I would like to take a chance to say “Thank you” to my teammates Samuel and Samantha. They are really good teammates!

 

 

Reference:

1. Amabile,T. & Khaire, M.(2008). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Harvard Business Review, 86(10)
2. Florida, R. & Goodnight, J. (2005). Managing for Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8)