first group project reflections
We completed our first group project at The Iron Yard on Monday and are about to start the weekend hackathon. I met with Brit yesterday to reflect on the group project and some code design decisions we made to prep for the hackathon.
“None of us is as smart as all of us.” –Ken Blanchard
I’ve worked in groups plenty. However, in the last few years it has been in a lead role. As a lead, the team expects you to well….lead. However, the group project at TIY didn’t have a dedicated PM or team lead so I tried to reign it in a bit. I really admire how Iron Yard places priority on everyone feeling welcome and wanted our team to have the same ‘all opinions are welcomed feel.’ Just keeping that little thought in the back of your mind could help prevent oh so many misunderstandings in every day life. I tried hard to make sure I didn’t steamroll people and let everyone be heard and the project went off well.
I thought our project ended successfully as the team had spent a good bit of time working on it on Thursday, Friday, and over the weekend. We held a public post mortem (project review) on Monday in front of all three of the classes. During the meeting, I realized that I hadn’t even seen our mobile and front end UIs….uh oh. After listening to the other teams, I came to the realization that our team did not communicate enough during the project!
Here are my take-aways from the group project which I plan to keep in mind during the hackathon:
- Leading isn’t a bad thing if everyones voices are heard
- Plan the UI layout and workflow as a team (seriously, this helps all team members understand requirements better)
- Don’t struggle alone! Even though the your partners don’t know your tools, talking things out with your team can help you work through through logic problems.