Reflection on principles of communication/teamwork on programming and problem-solution projects

Hello everybody, welcome to the final blog post of this CG1413 course. This time it’s going to be on how this course/module has helped me and my communication skills during the CG1413 problem solving project and the CG1102 programming project.

Firstly, the skills which i felt i have developed through this module is the presentation skills. Before this module I didn’t know the proper way of doing presentations, which made my initial oral presentation 1 kind of a mess up, It was a bit disorganized, I made too many unnecessary movements, the way I spoke wasn’t too good. But all of that is gone now, Ms Brenda has taught me the correct way and methods of doing an oral presentation. Kudos to Ms Brenda. Secondly, this module has made me realized how troublesome a proper meeting is, with all the agenda preparing, minutes taking. It’s such a chore. But nonetheless, it helps makes meetings organized and the general flow of the meeting smooth. Thirdly, the 7Cs, Courtesy, Correctness, Conciseness, Clarity, Coherence, Concreteness, Completeness. Before this module I had no idea communication and writing has such things, but now I know and I will try to implement it from now onwards.

For the CG1102 project, I would say I’m quite lucky to get into a group with no communication barriers, although Kris is not local, he speaks good English, which makes communication within the team very easy. As for how CG1413 has helped this project, it gave me insights on how to be a better team player and team leader. For example, making sure every member in the team has a chance to voice out their comments or ideas to help the project and not make any biased judgment.

As for the CG1413 problem solving project, I would say this module has helped me see the proper steps taken when trying to solve a problem. It’s not about just providing a solution like we initially thought. We have to consider all parties involved and their individual limitations and come up with a solution which doesn’t compromises anyone’s situation. And I also learned some things to take note when making presentation slides as on how to make them less boring, make it easier on the audience’s eyes etc. Teamwork within the group is excellent, everyone cooperated, we all got the job done, happy ending for all. We tried various forms of communication, like emails, online messaging, and of course face to face conversations. Each of it has its pros and cons, its all about maintaining the balance.

Well that’s it, the end of the final blog post of the CG1413 module, you won’t be seeing anymore new posts to this blog from now onwards i suppose, but this page will still remain here indefinitely until wordpress.com decides to take it down.

Reflection on Oral Presentation 2

Hello everybody, after a very long time since the last blog post, it’s finally time to do the fifth blog post for this course. This time round its a reflection post on my group’s oral presentation last week.

Honestly speaking, I think we did quite a good job back there as a team. Although it did not went as smoothly as expected, we managed to pull it off quite nicely. We worked tirelessly to make sure our presentation was delivering the message we wanted to deliver. We even stayed back late into the night to make sure our presentation had no visual flaws, things like font size, type of font used, the colors, and even the flow of the presentation was important. We even planned to wear the same colors for the presentation.

Compared to the last presentation, I think I did better this time well, i felt more prepared as I went through the slides the night before to think of the contents concerning my part of the presentation and I wrote them down in my handphone.  I tried to remember what Ms Brenda told me during the conference, about having good presentation behavior and skills, and tried to apply them during the presentation itself. I hope I did what I was told to do.

During my part of the presentation, I felt less nervous, had more confidence, and more prepared due to the the script in my handphone. I tried to follow what I had written, but after a while it was more of a hassle than being helpful, so i gave up trying to follow the script and just said whatever i remembered, it felt a lot more easier that way, although there’s a higher tendency to miss out some stuffs which I wanted to say but did not, but luckily that did not happen.

The Q&A part wasn’t so bad, we managed to answer most or if not all of the questions. There were a few critical comments here and there, but weren’t much of a big issue. Maybe this means our presentation delivered our content clearly to the audience.

So these are basically my thoughts and reflection of our group’s presentation. Have a nice day.  (:

Reflection on Meeting 1

4th blog post of CG1413. This time it’s a reflection post for my 1st meeting of the CG1102 Lab Project. I was the facilitator for that meeting and I felt i did a pretty good job as the meeting went smoothly.

The team was well prepared before the meeting. During the meeting, they were very cooperative, no one held back any ideas or comments. We all took in comments positively so there were no conflicts, which is good. Everyone took the meeting seriously,  and we addressed every point in the agenda for the meeting. So the meeting can be considered a success.

Only problem we faced was the videotaping of the meeting, we experienced a number of technical difficulties during the recording. During the first take, the recording was stopped after minute. During the second take, there was no sound. Then finally we managed to get it right during the third take. I have to thank the other two members of the team for being so patient and sporting in the sense that we had to “restart” the meeting from the beginning due to the technical issues.

Our meeting was a very short one, but its a very constructive one. Everyone left the meeting understanding what the project was about, what we as a team needed to do, and what each of us needed to do.

There were no complaints, no conflicts. The chemistry within the team is excellent. I am so glad to have ended up in such a team.

Interpersonal Conflict

Alright, here we go, third blog post for CG1413. This week, its on interpersonal conflicts. For this post, I will describe in detail an interpersonal conflict situation and try to identify the feelings of the people involved. Finally, while considering the main problem, articulate it in the form of a question in which those of you who reads this post may try to come up with a possible solution.

This happened to me about 3 to 4 years ago. I was holding a barbecue party with my friends over at my place. The problem with having a barbecue here is that we are given a time limit, for example 8 am to 2 pm , 2pm to 6pm, 6pm to 10pm. And so I took the 6pm to 10 pm time slot. Everything went well, everyone was having fun, that was until the Security Guards came over and told us to stop our activity at exactly 10pm. The thing is, what usually happens is that we could ask for a time extension, and also because we weren’t making a lot of noise, I don’t see why not, after all my past barbecue sessions had time extended to 11pm or so. Thus I asked one of them nicely, whether we could get a time extension. Then here is where it all started. I shall simply name the guards A and B. I asked A, he told me that it was already 10pm and so time is up. I asked again stating that we won’t make any noise or disturb the neighbors.  The he gave me a very irritated look and told me to go and pack up now. So obviously I got a little bit fed up, and asked him why we can’t get an time extension, and I also said that I had extensions before. Again, he told me to go and pack up immediately. I wanted to hold back my anger because my friends were there, but there is a limit to my patience and benevolence. Firstly, he is only a Security Guard, and I am a Resident. They are there to watch over the estate, not rule the estate. Secondly, he treated me like a child, he dared to ask which block I stayed in and wanted to speak with my parents instead of me. Thirdly, he took me lightly and tried to laugh it off.  No doubt he is doing his job as a security guard, but his attitude stinks. I raised my voice and shouted at him, and told him that he better know his place and a bunch of that I don’t remember. All I know was that I was close to hitting him in the face just that one of my friends held me back. He then went over to the other guard and asked him to give us a 15 minutes extension and we got it. I then issued a warning to that fellow telling him to watch out. I then told my friends to pack everything up and apologized to them for a ruined evening.

The next day, I went down to the Management Office and lodged a complaint against the guard. Investigations went underway. And he found someone to defend him, apparently someone else was there during the episode, stating that I was the one being rude first. Yet I remembered clearly that he was the one that treated me like nobody first. I firmly told the management that I won’t accept it and that they better do something about it before I bring it to the higher management and make hell for them. One week later, I didn’t get any response, but I didn’t see that guard around anymore, my guess is that he got sacked or just posted to another condominium.

If you were there in my shoes, what would you have done? When by right, you are the one with the higher power, and he on the other hand treated you like you are a pushover.

Observation of team behavior: intercultural and interpersonal communication

It’s time for another blog post for my CG1413 module. This time it will be on my observation of intercultural and interpersonal communication within a team, what I understand about culture, and the fundamentals of effective communication.

Firstly, my observation of intercultural and interpersonal communication within a team. To start off, I believe I can say that I have met a lot of people through my gaming ways, and the best thing about it is that even though not all of us has met face to face before, we are still able to communicate as if we are close friends, we joke around, we help each other out in other areas such as work or school, and I do not feel there is any cultural differences. Among this group of gaming buddies, there are males and females, there are Indonesians, Filipinos, and Singaporeans, and also different races in the group such as Malays and Chinese. The ages of the group’s members also range from as young as 13 years old to 38 years old, yet we are still able to treat each other equally and not put any cultural obstructions between ourselves. All I can say is that I am lucky to have met such people.

To me, Culture is what defines a person’s background. It tells me what kind of attitude and characteristics a person is supposed to have, but that is mostly stereotyping. I believe that when working with people, we must be able to look past our differences in whatever culture we have in order to communicate effectively. It is more important to try and understand one’s culture than just showing tolerance. Cultural tolerance will only obstruct the understanding and appreciation of another, which isn’t the best kind of team behavior because people are working together with a forced attitude and acceptance of one another.

I think the most fundamental thing about interpersonal communication is Listening. If one is unwilling to listen in the first place, then what’s the point of communicating. And also, showing respect to the other person is very important, no matter how much you loathe or hate the other person, they still deserve the tiniest respect you are able to give. The next thing we should take note of is the words we say and the topics we choose in conversations, some things can get very touchy for the other person and its not a very nice thing for either party.

These are my thoughts on this week’s topic, hope you had a pleasant time reading it.

Why is Communication and Teamwork important to me.

Let me start off by defining Communication and Teamwork. Communication, in my definition, basically means conveying a message or an idea from one person to another or a group, without misinterpreting it. Teamwork, means a group of people working simultaneously, each member of the group playing their own part, and combining the different parts and pieces that each member has done, to form a masterpiece. Teamwork also means that members must communicate well with each other, they must keep the group updated with what they are doing, what they have done, and also any problems they are facing, the Team must then help out one another to the best of their ability, because if one fails, the whole team fails.

As to why Communication and Teamwork is important to me, these two aspects actually determines what kind of person I am and how much of a team player I am. Because i know if I don’t communicate and do my part for the team, the team will be handicapped, they will start thinking how much of a jerk I am because I’m slacking away while they are working their ass off for the team. It also makes me feel bad, I don’t like to ride on others’ credit, thus I will always do what’s required of me and try to be a team player as much as possible.

As to how it fits into my daily life, I’m a Gamer. I play on the competitive side of gaming. So there are always tons of opportunities to be in a team and polish up my communication and teamwork skills. The reason why communication is so important in gaming is that its the thin line between winning and losing a match, and it is upsetting to know that we lost a point just because of a misunderstanding, but we laugh it off most of the time. That’s how important a teams’ attitude is as well, we don’t want to blame it all on one person just because we lost, it creates negative energy within the team, and it’s not good for everyone because the whole point is to have fun while we are playing, nobody wants to spoil the fun. That’s what a team should be like, being able to look over mistakes and not discourage anyone, keep the atmosphere within the team friendly, improvise and move on.