In times when life and perhaps this project is unraveling just a bit, it's nice to have a solidifying team process to ground us when approaching each major milestone.

BACKGROUND

These last couple of weeks felt like a bit of a fugue state, with pockets here and there of group meetings, scattered interviews, and deeper secondary research. Until the Sunday before Week 6, when everything hurtled into focus, a little painfully.

PROBLEM

There's some sort of disconnect between us and our partner…

The Client Communicator should not be reaching out for a third time to the partner to ask about the possibility of observing parent-teacher meetings or interviewing more TWS parents; at this point, it's time to be more explicit that it's hard for us to move forward with our primary research without this core fieldwork.

Our partner wants to "go with the flow" in terms of our meetings and updates with him, and I'm very hesitant — to me, that sounds like a recipe for letting things slip by until it's been weeks with barely any contact. I just texted my team about having our designated notetaker be responsible each week for sending him an update on our research, just so it doesn't get spotty as the term gets busier and busier.

…and maybe some disconnect among ourselves as a team.

At my Week 6 meeting with Eugene, the conversation gravitated to how I can be more assertive with my team about trying new things like establishing more consistent roles and brainstorming ways to have more fun at meetings (e.g. appointing a snacks person, DJ). Comparing a 5-10 minute proposal with a lo-fidelity prototype that can help our team find more of a rapport that works for everyone was helpful, because yeah—the returns can ultimately be great for long-term team dynamic, and the worst case is simply having whittled away 10 minutes of extra team time. So I'll try that at our next meeting, maybe suggesting the snacks thing now that we've had Emi's Skillshare about how snacks can build rapport, and then suggesting to have a more intentional discussion about team roles. I'm happy(ish)? with how this class wrapped up on Friday and am hoping we can jump right into a more productive discussion on how we can effectively wrap up this term while preparing ourselves for the next phase in the spring.

I LIKE

How the SDC is pushing me to become a more proactive teammate and presenter.

I really, really don't want to let my team down, because I know how much our project means to them—especially as we now thoroughly understand the potential we have to help TWS parents embrace an affirming, nurturing and empowering behavioral approach for their children.

For our insights presentation, I was absolutely determined to make sure we took our desk research feedback in stride to effectively showcase our project and research process. This time, instead of advocating for certain content less than two hours before our slides were due, I made sure to share my thoughts and add in necessary points well in advance, so the person organizing the slides towards the end was not overwhelmed and inundated with floating pieces of info.

It felt wonderful to see how the changes reflected in our most recent presentation were so well-received by our cohort: they appreciated the explicit comparison and inclusion of examples to compare the two behavioral approaches. I also felt glad that our synthesis process appeared to be validated and is so far working; the Designosaurs were in a very different spot just a week beforehand as we collectively struggled on how to bring our learnings and the many different types of synthesis mapping gleaned from class into our project.

I WISH

We had more explicit expectations about our process and communication, with more built-in opportunities to check on our progress.

I understand that the SDC was probably designed to be more open-ended: it's not like we had to fill out special applications to be Project Manager or Notetaker, for instance. And I can definitely see how the DALI-mandated requirement that each team meet as a whole and with the partner a certain number of times a week isn't a structure that is feasible or even helpful for every partner or every team on the SDC. But I think enforcing this to some extent, e.g. requiring that teams meet with our partner at least twice a month/send over some structured form of update, would be a helpful guiding force when our partner seems to be content with going with the flow, an approach I don't think will necessary help us communicate with the consistency required for mutual understanding.

I once took a group research class where the fall term course was a preparation for our winterim fieldwork trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Maybe it bordered on handholding, but the timeline of the class incorporated frequent feedback sessions or check-ins with our prof and TA. I thought this process was helpful for making sure we stayed on track and that our research preparation and execution was meeting the expectations and rigor of the class

I know we are being handed the reins in terms of partner communication and reaching out to Eugene for support as a form of learning through agency, but I would appreciate some more of this kind of structure to cut through the chaos of everyone's term, helping mobilize us around an incentive to be consistent rather than rallying to complete the upcoming deliverable and letting things slide once we have wrapped up.

I also think the Skillshare was particularly frustrating for me because of how we had to compress this mini-session to the point where I felt we were barely grazing the surface of what was being taught. I understand the point of the exercise, where developing a strong organizational principle and watertight timing were key to executing an effective Skillshare presentation, but just don't think 15 minutes is ever enough to actually learn anything in a meaningful way.

WHAT IF

The feedback on our presentations has been so helpful, and I would love to make it more of a frequent occurrence in this class - like having a few mandatory office hour check-ins with each group each term, or requiring teams to meet up outside of class for a team-on-team feedback meeting once every couple of weeks. These more embedded opportunities for feedback would be great to have in between our major checkpoints to ensure that we stay on track.

Personally, regarding my "I wish" comments about the Skillshare, I wouldn't have minded being allowed 20-30 minutes to teach a tool as multifaceted as FigJam and hope that future cohorts can have more space to explain basic principles of their skill while giving other students more ample time to actually process the class activity.

It was really cool to go through previous SDC project reports, and I wouldn't mind having that process become an assignment or a mini-critique/presentation about what we like (would poach), and don't like (would avoid), so we have a more concrete and documented understanding of how to approach our own project reports from the teams before us.

ALL IN ALL…

I think my SDC experience and project direction is now a little more rough around the edges what with the term getting busier and more stressful, but nonetheless I am still channeling some more optimistic fortitude for the final stretch of this term and staying on track as a designer!

Thanks for checking out my case study :)

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