Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Generally I felt the meeting was effective and rewarding for us as a group.
Initially, everyone was feeling slightly awkard, sentences were picked and chosen with care. This was probably due to the effect of having a webcam during the meeting process.
However, as the meeting progressed, it was evident that everyone became more focused on the meeting itself, and eventually everyone became more comfortable as the meeting continued.
When the meeting just started, we defined what the question was about, and what were the requirements we felt was needed by the question, and when the meeting was ending we made an effort to summarize all the points we discussed. I felt this is a good way to conduct a meeting as we start off stating what we expect to be doing in the discussion, and end off summarizing so all the points that were touched on will be refreshed again, so no points will be missed out.
During the meeting, all of us were focused in solving the problem in CG1102 lab 3 together. The meeting conducted was effective as no one was distracted, and we objectively pointed out mistakes in theory or concepts without causing any conflict. In this way, we acknowledge as a team that any opinions of any member in the team are respected.
Faizal raised a good point in reminding us that our concept of how the assignment may be approached may not be optimal. And throughout the meeting he also actively questioned the ideas we initially had about the assignment. So even during our design of our project, we are already checking for parts that may be not feasible or wrong, so we minimize errors that might cause issues in the later parts of our assignment. Likai was also proactive in giving insightful opinions and ideas about the assignment and how our ideas can be better improved. Jay was engaged in spearheading where our discussion is headed towards and he provided many opinions about how we should approach this assignment.
Generally everyone in the group listens to everyone else's opinions and reflects objectively on it.
However I personally feel I could have allowed for more room for discussion by my other team members, and give them more chance to express their ideas. This way we minimize conflicts in the team, thus conducting an effective meeting.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Speaking of conflicts, I remembered an argument I had with my friend.
I told this friend of mine that there was an issue with his character, that he was lacking a general ambition or purpose in life, and was treating everything in his life with a lackadaisical manner.
He was having problems with his grades then. Even though he will feel upset over his poor grades at first, soon the problem will be clean out of his mind, and he will seem like normal again. And he treated many things in his life that way. I felt as a friend I needed to help him get some direction, and tried to approach the issue in a objective manner, so I would not hurt his feelings. I understood that getting him to accept that he was lacking in someway or the other was bound to be hurting. So I tried my best to be sensitive to his feelings.
He told me he needed my help to change, and I tried my best to help. But whenever I gently reminded him of this problem, he got upset and agitated. There were a lot of disagreements over this, but most of them were cleared up rather quickly. Even so, the problem was not solved. It seems my friend's happy-go-lucky nature has caused him to put problems out of his mind very easily. Therefore he did not seem to be able to concentrate and tackle the problem.
By then, the small and frequent disagreements have already strained our relationship, and every time we talked the conversation will be full of tension. Then once I told him I did not want to bother about him anymore, and could not be bothered to care. He tried to appease me but failed. And worse of all, the next day, he behaved like nothing had ever happened, like we did not argue fiercely the day before. I was quite upset about his attitude, but did not know how to tell him about it, so I left it at that.
Would the situation have been better if I did not interfere with this in the first place?
What could I have done to further improve the situation?
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