Collaborative Plan (Updated): Bishoy, Tommy, Ugochi, Allison

Goals

• Project Goal: To create our app, Save Tuba, that will help the citizens in Kazakhstan become more sustainable and environmentally aware.
  • To measure the success of our project, we need to collect data on how many people use the app, on the rate of recycling in Kazakhstan, and possibly do interviews to see how people think it has changed their lives. There will also be quizzes in the app to track environmental education of the users. 
• Personal Goal (Alli): To broaden my knowledge on the school systems in Kazakhstan, and learn how to integrate a gamified, educational app into their curriculum. Also to gain a better understanding of the culture in Almaty.
• Personal Goal (Ugochi): To understand the in-depth process behind successful and impactful smart innovations, and leave the project with an ability to implement similar innovations in other cities.
• Person Goal: (Tommy): Learn the process of implementing a gamified learning tool into schools. Better understand how partnerships work to complete a task. 
• Personal Goal: (Bishoy): Improve writing and research skills to better understand how impactful papers are written and how to get published in the research role. To set realistic expectations for our app to synthesize a distribution process where it reaches the most people.

Roles

• All of us have been working on publications. Each of us have an E4C article published, we have a paper accepted for GHTC, and an IEEE paper in the works. 
• Now, as our project is beginning to have more concrete tasks and has a more detailed plan, we have focused on various subgroups. Tommy and Bishoy are working on the app development and testing, Ugochi is working on the wireframe and the visuals, and Alli is working on the sustainability tasks. However, there is overlap; we are each helping each other with all the tasks if we need help.
• We don’t have one project manager, but we each sort of head various tasks. So some of us are the “project managers” of a certain publication, or of creating the MVP, etc. Ugochi and Tommy worked on the venture over the summer, so they are most knowledgeable on the project right now.

Procedures

• For decision making, I think we should strive for consensus, but if we hit a specifically difficult topic, then it might have to be majority rules.
• Right now we have been doing a lot of communication online, and it seems like it is going to have to continue to be that way. However, as many zoom meetings, or “face-to-face” simulations we can have, the better. Texts (GroupMe) and emails are good substitutes when we cannot zoom right away.
• For meeting roles, it depends on the meeting, as our roles will shift. However, usually we all do a good job of each taking notes, and all keeping time in mind, and facilitating together.
• We are meeting at an additional time (aside from the one with Khanjan). We have been having a zoom call every Thursday evening to debrief on the work we have done, and plan out what we still have to do.

Relationships

• Everyone on our team has different strengths that play well into making us work effectively. We have various majors and disciplines across our team, including computer science, engineering, and international relations. This allows us to use each other’s strengths to solve any issues we may come across. We also all have different cultural backgrounds which helps us look at everything with different perspectives.
• Our team name is Save Tuba.

[Individual] 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. We are now more organized and keep each other accountable. We have a weekly report document where we summarize meeting tasks and our weekly contribution.
2. We have roles that are more clearly defined. We all cover a portion of the venture specifically.
3. I am more confident now that if I can do my part or a task for week one of my teammates can pick it up.
4. I learned that sometimes it takes all of us to work through a solution for a problem. For example, working on our GHTC paper took so much time but it was only doable with the input and criticism of all of my teammates.
5. Keeping a detailed timeline for the semester is an approach we started this semester. I think this will really help us streamline and keep track of all the work we have to do.
6. I definitely learned to be more patient. From the very beginning I wanted to choose a smart innovation and run with it because they all seem very much possible to implement, and they so seemingly have a profound impact. However, it takes much more time to methodically think about the way one would go about leveraging existing systems and partnerships to implement a lasting solution, not just one that is easy.
7. Developing a strong time management is absolutely essential. This is something that I’ve become better at and still continuing to improve on. GSIF is a class where its very hard to quantify the time needed to complete some tasks, especially reading and analyzing literature and finding a potential direction to go.
8. Researching is essential in understanding the field we are entering. We are suppose to leverage the existing work to make a different, but we did not initially understand the market we were entering at all. We had to take more time to read through to understand it more. After writing our first paper, this really helped me developed the skills needed to become a better researcher.
9. I learned that a venture is very much dependent on the surrounding partners and environment. It is impossible to deploy a solution in a foreign country without help from domestic insight.
10. Being critical of the team is also important. Making sure we are going down a direction that is the best takes a lot of time and thinking. Also question the actions of the ventures PI is important because it helps me understand the mindset I should have when approaching social issues and developing a social venture.