WPL2 - reflection

Situation

The goal of this course is to simulate the daily tasks and workflow of our future job. We also work with real clients and must present and execute a complete project. Naturally, we do not work alone; we are assigned to groups. Everyone has a different view and opinion about the work, and it is important to stay as aligned as possible.

Task

My task within this project became clear after a small team-building session with my group. I focused mainly on the design work and offered support/help to the developer when needed. This task description is quite broad because several people focused on the design aspect. This meant that misunderstandings or uncertainties could arise due to significant differences of opinion.

Action

As agreed, I spent most of my work designing the brand guide. At the beginning of the branding process, I was not alone; some members helped me with the logo and color palette. We worked on this for several days, even an entire sprint, leading to many discussions. For instance, we disagreed on the direction of the logo design, and some people requested an alternative palette with more blue. I also planned and conducted brainstorming sessions with the team several times to clarify everything.

My group and I spent at least an hour daily on a general conversation. We did this not only to see how everyone was personally doing but also to gauge the project's progress informally. In the afternoon, we also had a session to see where the group's energy was after lunch. By the middle of sprint 3, all the tasks and workflows were aligned and cohesive. Additionally, I collaborated with the lead developer for several days and offered help where needed.

Result

The brainstorming sessions helped enormously and saved time. We resolved our disagreements by making compromises. Our coaches often helped by guiding our work in the right direction and providing constructive feedback. According to the jury, the client, and ourselves, this project was completed amazingly. The client had a few comments, for example we used some unnecessary gradients on photos, but overall, the clients and we were very pleased with the result. Personally, I look forward to working on projects with this group more often.

Reflection

What went very well during this collaboration was the polite yet friendly interaction of everyone involved. This created enjoyable moments and made sure no one felt excluded. We divided the tasks well and always kept everyone informed of changes or other important announcements. I also appreciated that people spoke up, for example, when someone would be late or forgot items like a mouse or post-its.

What could be improved was keeping track of and documenting our work. We had to stop several times to update Confluence. At such moments, it is normal to forget some steps or thought processes. Additionally, we created strange burndown charts several times due to our lax timekeeping on Jira and Confluence. We often forgot to drag completed tasks to 'done', for example.

In the beginning, we also struggled with processing feedback, especially because communication with the client was not always present, and we did not know for a long time if we were on the right track. Fortunately, this was resolved by better communication in the later sprints. Our client could then contact us more regularly. And subsequently our ability to recieve feedback improved.

Transfer

In the future, I will use a concrete notebook or tool to list my tasks, keep track of deadlines, and note deliverables. These tasks were largely done by the teachers, and it was very handy to have an overall plan. Of course, that won't be the case every time.

To process feedback, I will visit my colleagues and coaches (if any) more often to see what I need to focus on or improve. It is easier to ask short questions than to schedule an hour to improve work in broad strokes.