It’s the end of Week 4, which means it’s time for my weekly project collaboration reflection!

What happened?

Our instructional document is coming together. My team members (Irish team) have done a good job of adding text and descriptions. Although when I opened the latest document someone had attempted to place diagram numbers and bullets which for some reason were ALL OVER the document, I think something strange must have happened when it was saved. I’m downloading the document and using Word to view, so it’s a possibility that maybe someone else is using a different word processor. In the end I had to remove them.

A sneak peek of our collaboration project!

Initially someone in the American team mentioned they were good at graphic design, so I suggested maybe they take a look at the document and try to add the numbering/figuring to the images directly. I did feel bad removing the numbering as someone had spent time putting it together, but I did say to the team I wouldn’t be upset if they wanted to revert it back.

I applied a theme and added some images to make the document look attractive, although I suggested that the American team take a look at this too as they may be able to improve the aesthetics even further.

What was I thinking? How was I feeLing?

I’m feeling more positive about the project at the moment, but at the same time I don’t want to fix everything as I want to make sure the American team have some responsibility. At the moment they haven’t contributed to anything. One of my teammates mentioned that the images have been taken on the English site, and that the French team will need images in French. This is a good point, but I thought it was the French team’s responsibility to do that? Either way I think that is something that the French team and American team should do between them.

What was good and bad?

The document is functional and looking good. We have settled on the topic of “Creating a Free WordPress Blog” progress is being made. Only one member of the American team is currently communicating, I’m not sure what’s happened to the other members of the team.

Can I make sense of the situation?

I can only assume that the other teams (American) don’t see this assignment as being very important. Maybe they would have contributed more if we’d given them specific tasks to do? Rather then giving them a choice.

What else could I have done?

I don’t think I wouldn’t have done anything differently this week. I suppose I could have tried to make some time in my schedule for another Skype call, but it’s just been such a busy few weeks and this weekend has been a write-off.

If this happened again, what would I do differently?

We should have created a schedule between us and mapped out each team members responsibility e.g. when should people work on the assignment, when they are done working on it, who should they pass it to? And carry on like this until the document is finished.