I think the design team worked well together and was very open for collaboration. A lot of people took the initiative to work on specific areas and have also been cross checking their work with each other, which is a relief for me. I think that there was a nice level of diversity of ideas but we were able create something cohesive to feed back to the group.
I also found that a lot of people were happy to complete tasks if I set them it directly, even though they might not have volunteered to work on it otherwise.
I am happy with the communication between leads and the understanding and empathy we have all displayed towards each other.
I think the main issue I had was not splitting into separate groups with distinct deliverables sooner. In part this was because I wanted to make sure everyone was being heard, and that I was not leaving any critical work to people I couldn’t trust to execute it, but overall allowing too many cooks in the kitchen created more confusion than anything else.
I also think our communication of ideas needed to be improved. I think things were generally okay when I had the chance to talk to the other team leads and explain things, but generally written communication created more stress than it solved.
I have been better than I have been previously on delegating and assigning tasks, however I have noticed that I can get distracted by my own work before I remember to contact someone and therefore giving them a shorter deadline, which is unfair to them.
I think that in the future I would like to base my communication between teams on meetings/one on one explanations because that seems more effective than trying to summarise notes, especially as my dysgraphia can make it very difficult to tell if what I’ve written is easy to comprehend.
I also plan to split the team into smaller, more focused groups so that we can produce work without clashing on ideas. I have to be stricter about this now that we have moved into the production phase, but I also think that the best use for me within the team is answering questions and clarifying. From what I’ve found no matter what at least one person will be confused, so it is more useful to put my energy into being proactive with explaining to individuals, rather than putting that effort into the more isolated task of creating documentation people aren’t inclined to read.
I will also attempt to create and assign tasks as soon and I identify them. I will try to do this within trello and breakdown the tasks into steps so it is easier to explain what I require.
Nuts & Bolts
Wires
Polymer/rubber ball
Metal sheets
Art piece made from nuts & bolts
Art piece made from wires
Art piece made from polymers
Art piece made from metal sheets