Blog #5

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. At the start of my involvement with PlasTech Venture, the team had a single Slack platform for the entire student team. Within the team, there are various sub-teams (CINQ, prototyping team, and research team) that developed over time. We have developed subchannels within Slack to organize the content of the conversations based on who is involved. This also allows other members to be in the loop of other team’s progress even if they are not directly involved. We enhanced our communication skills from organizing a team’s conversation into subgroups to avoid confusion while keeping all team members updated. 
2. During the spring semester, there were a number of occasions when a task was given to a team of three. Oftentimes two of the team members would complete nearly the entire task. Towards the end of the semester, the team transitioned to clearly communicating how each member will contribute to the task prior to tackling it. We learned the importance of effective communication and developed skills in delegating tasks within a group setting. 
3. Upon joining the team at the start of the semester, there were weeks when I was so busy with academics that I ended up not completing the assigned weekly tasks that would advance the project forward. Rather than disappointing my team, I learned that it is okay to ask for help and lean on my team during those difficult times rather than attempt to shoulder everything. 
4. When the project started in the Spring semester, there was a continuous cycle of meeting as a team on Friday to discuss individual findings and working on the assigned task every week. I recall dreading the thought of working on the project at that moment. Towards the end of the semester, we started to spend time together for reasons outside of working on the project. There was comfort in eating together at Williams after the general meetings on Fridays. I learned the importance of spending enjoyable time with my teammates outside of the project context. The more I learned about them, the better we coordinated with one another. 
5. The team develops a timeline at the beginning of the semester on their intended deliverables by the end of the semester. Last semester we struggled in sticking with the timeline due to numerous research that required the team to conduct further investigations rather than provide answers to the topic being investigated. It was frustrating to appear as if progress was not being made when everyone is doing their best. We have become more flexible in our timeline by adding, shifting, and removing planned deliverables in order to see the big picture of our progress. 
6. Most engineers are known to be introverts and I am no exception. At the start of the project, nearly all of my interactions with third parties were via email. Oftentimes I would send an email and never get a response back. I was told by Brian (advisor) to make a call to PET sources instead of typing emails at my computer screen. It was amazing to see the difference in response time between emailing and calling. I learned to make phone calls if I wanted something done as soon as possible.
7. During the start of the semester, most tasks were divided to individuals on the team according to their major. I found that even though the task may be compatible with the person’s major, it does not necessarily mean that they will be happy to complete the task. Our team progressively shifted to each team member volunteering what weekly tasks they would like to work on. This change enabled me and my team members to develop a great sense of ownership over the project.
8. After working with numerous people during my academic years thus far, I have collaborated with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Oftentimes I would be the leader and delegate tasks. I became used to leading teams and having most things go my way. Collaborating with a team that was self-driven and were interested in doing the thinking has taught me the importance of being flexible and less stubborn when it came to collaborating.
9. During the spring semester, meeting minutes and contents during the general meeting were usually never recorded on a consistent basis. As a result, there were times when I struggled to recall certain information or my weekly deliverables. For every meeting thus far in the Fall, we have designated Andy and Susan to record the contents to ensure that all members have the opportunity to refer to the Friday discussions.
10. During the first round of GSIF presentations, I recall my team struggling to answer the panelists’ questions in a timely manner while providing the information they were looking for. The rough experience taught my team to identify key topics and have each member specialize on a key topic they will answer questions in order to provide the correct information to the panelist in an efficient manner.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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. 

3. 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.