So far, project week planning has been even more challenging then I imagined it would be. Although my group and I have tried very hard to stay organised, by having regular meetings and creating shared documents to share information, there is still a lot to keep track of when planning such a complex experience. Planning for project week has really given me the chance to adapt the way I work with people. In order to avoid disagreements, we all have to be as diplomatic and willing to compromise as possible. I am used to trying to stay out of disagreements in group work by taking a bit more of a backseat, and just agreeing with other people’s suggestions. Lately I have been trying to be more vocal with my opinions at the same time as making sure I’m not speaking over other people. I think it is important to get a balance of being assertive and being willing to compromise. So far, my group members and I seem to be doing well, as we are all mostly happy with our plans, and have managed to come to mutual agreements on most parts of the planning process.
I think the bigger challenges have come from factors other than collaboration, that I didn’t initially expect. We have recently had to reconsider our whole plan, setting us behind where we were supposed to be. We were informed by the service department at school that in order to do the project we planned, which was helping build houses in Cambodia, we would have to raise about $15,000. Although we really wanted to stick to the project, we realised that in this case, this challenge would not have been worth it. With our school work and limited time, we realised it would be very difficult to raise that much money. I think the biggest lesson this taught me was not to get my hopes up about something without making sure I know all the details of what would be necessary. We were all very disappointed to change our project, and I think finding out this information before would have avoided the disappointment. When we changed to a project working with children in Vietnam, we made sure to find out every single detail before we committed ourselves. That way we knew what we were approaching and could actually get the planning done much more efficiently. I think this will carry over into other work I do with groups or with planning. It was kind of a reminder not to rush into things, which I can sometimes do when I am really excited or interested in a project or event.
Evidence: Link to planning document
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-84LsA5HuDrjHj3S1t5fxCj5VxMjdo8/view?usp=sharing
