GSIF Fall: Week Six

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1. List ten specific ways in which your teaming approach has changed/evolved since you started, teamwork skills you have developed, and lessons you have learned.

  1. I have become more confident in expressing my thoughts in group meetings because my materials ‘expertise’ has become more critical to the project
  2. I have learned how to hold other team members accountable
  3. I have learned that it is more important to be transparent about being unable to complete a task and needing an extension than to under-deliver on the deadline
  4. I have learned about the importance of delegating tasks based on skill-set
  5. In a similar vein, I have learned that it is important to step outside of your comfort zone (and skill-set) to take on tasks that will advance the project forward
  6. I have learned how to communicate with people on a multidisciplinary team, who all have different academic backgrounds
  7. I have learned that it’s always better to go the extra mile because any work will advance the project forward
  8. I have learned that not everyone on a team will have the same standard of “completeness,” and sometimes you will have to add on to someone else’s work but other times someone will add on to yours
  9. I have learned that bonding outside of the project setting is very important for strengthening the team dynamic
  10. I have learned that it’s important to be patient when your teammates need extra help with something because sometimes you’ll need their help with something
  1. During Spring 2020/Week 7, your team developed a Collaboration Plan for your team clearly articulating your goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships. Provide an updated collaboration plan.

Goals:

  • What are the personal goals (small g) of each member on this team?
    • Laura: Use the technical skills I’ve developed through my coursework at Lehigh to  make positive change on global scale
    • Susan: To change the way people currently live to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly through my mechanical engineering and product design background.
    • Kelly: Using my experience to manage the distribution channels of plastics to ensure there is consistency in the types of plastics used, so that the bricks ultimately can be of high quality to the population of the Philippines.
  • What is the project GOAL (big G) we’re all committed to achieve together?
      • To provide a clean environment for Filipinos to live in by diverting solid plastic waste from landfills and decreasing plastic pollution in the oceans.

Roles:

  • Team leaders
    • Prototyping – Andy
    • Material Testing- Laura
    • Paper Development- Kelly
    • UPD Outreach- Ellie
  • Team scribes: Andy and Susan
  • Company sponsor interface: Susan
  • Financial manager: Kelly
  • Final brief editors: Susan → Laura → Andy
  • Liaison to shops, labs and other support persons:
    • Woodshop: Susan
    • Packard Shop: Andy
    • Whitaker labs: Laura

Procedures: 

  1. Decision Making – What process shall we use: consensus, majority rules, deference to expert, default to the loudest, or?
  • Decision making will result from mainly a team consensus. So far, no situations have arisen where there has been enough disagreement among the team to warrant alternative strategies. In areas where a majority of the team lacks knowledge, we tend to defer to the ‘expert’ on the team.
  1. Effective Meetings – Focus on key, timely decisions together vs. status/update (offline);
  • Meetings occur every Friday where each team member presents their work for the past week. The team analyzes the result of all the team members’ work and determines the next steps as a group. The team then divides and conquers the tasks needed to achieve the next steps by next week’s deadline. If any changes occur throughout the week that relates to the deliverable set for the upcoming week, the team member will notify the student team via Slack and develop any necessary backup plan.
  1. Meeting roles: scribe, facilitator, timekeeper
  • Andy and Susan will collaborate as the main scribes during the meeting. Any other members are free to chime into the effort. The team will go through the list of deliverables that was agreed upon the previous week and ask the designated team member to present their efforts on the specified deliverable. Brian acts as the facilitator based on the information presented during the meeting. Both he and other faculty advisors will ask key questions throughout the meeting to push the team forward. Deliverables will be determined and assigned to each member at the end of each meeting as a group consensus. 
  1. Communication – FTF: frequency, time, location; type of technology: (Googledocs, Zoom, Hangout, etc.); expectations for responsiveness; ‘best time to work’ (AM, PM, weekends?)
  • The general meeting between the team, advisors, PI, and sponsors occur on Fridays from 12pm-1pm on Zoom. The student team will be in constant communication with each other through Slack throughout the week and expects a response within an hour to one day. A weekly brief will be sent out to all the faculty advisors prior to the weekly general meeting to provide a quick update on the team’s efforts and progress during the week.

Relationships:

  • Team Diversity – What is the diversity on our team? Disciplines to tap for solutions;  individual learning styles for the stages of invention; overall team learning style strengths and places to supplement;  cultural backgrounds , work experience, dreams to leverage for scope & impact of goals, new roles, better procedures; languages for more diverse customer set, bigger market;
    • Currently, our team is composed of people from all kinds of backgrounds that have contributed to advancing PlasTech Ventures forward. First, the majority of the team is pursuing a different major. Andy and Susan are Mechanical Engineering majors (Susan also has a product design minor) and have been really involved in making various designs of wall systems and the machinery to produce the wall systems. Ellie is an IDEAS major (Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Science) who has been investigating UV degradation on plastics to understand how the wall systems will be impacted by the sun over a long period of time. Laura is an IDEAS major (Material Science & Engineering, Economics, Environmental Studies) who is leading the efforts in conducting research on the compressive strength of recycled plastics at different contamination levels. Lastly, Kelly is a supply chain who plays a major role in determining the movement of plastics in the Philippines and is currently leading efforts in the development of our most recent paper.
  1. Listening – Notice my binary thinking, auto-rankism, and go beyond it.
  • As the team is faced with numerous tasks ranging from prototyping machinery to material testing, the team decided to divide and conquer! During the start of the Fall 2020 semester, PlasTech Ventures was divided into the prototyping group and the material testing group. At the very start of the semester, the research team was fumbling their way through obtaining accessibility to testing facilities, sourcing the PET flakes, determining the experimental procedure and equipment, etc. Understanding that the prototyping team was busy with their tasks, such as machinery investigation, the research team had every intention to shoulder the heavy duties that were laid upon its members. The prototyping team listened to the researcher’s team progress and knew they needed help. They immediately proceeded in aiding the research team and spent at least a week in investigating the appropriate specimen mold for the experiment. 
  1. Team Name–What’s a team name that captures who we are and what we’re going to do?
  • PlasTech Ventures! The team is utilizing technology to create products out of recycled plastics in order to diverge plastics from the landfill and ocean. The business model that the team is currently developing will provide entrepreneurial opportunities to Filipinos.
  1. Identify a real potential funding source for your project. Seek sign-off from your faculty mentor and develop a detailed outline for the proposal with specific insights, arguments, and accomplishments.

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