I’m one of the students who had the opportunity to do this project once before. I further thought about this experience compared to the previous one as I had also participated in Fan Yang’s research project. I think the biggest concern or fear in doing the collaboration project is the fear of uncertainty by the other team. It’s sometimes difficult enough to work with our own classmates in trying to find time to meet, work on various stages of the project, and turn in a quality deliverable.
This time around, having had the previous experience of doing the similar project, I knew that communication was going to be the key to success. The first step was to have all of us use the mobile app LINE and start a group conversation. E-mail tends to be an ineffective form of communication, while instant communication proved to work best from the previous round. LINE ended up being the way we were able to stay in touch about upcoming meetings, clarifying things, sharing ideas, pictures, and some small talk.
Thankfully, our group turned out to have worked out well. We were always ahead of schedule since we had a week’s head start on the assignment. I thought that this time compared to last time went smoother since I had previous experience with the assignment. However, I think we had an all-star group that really worked hard to get all of the milestones done. On the Japanese team, they had a good mix of people, including one who really liked doing video editing. This was a huge asset for us.
In making recommendations for the future would be to really try to foster the team interactions between Hawaii and Japan. Perhaps there could be more team to team - as in (2) Hawaii/Japan teams check in with each other to see how things are going. Since we’re all classmates on our side and they on theirs that might help to further foster good working relationships. This may also help to flesh out what’s working well and what’s not working well by comparing notes earlier on in the process.
This time around, having had the previous experience of doing the similar project, I knew that communication was going to be the key to success. The first step was to have all of us use the mobile app LINE and start a group conversation. E-mail tends to be an ineffective form of communication, while instant communication proved to work best from the previous round. LINE ended up being the way we were able to stay in touch about upcoming meetings, clarifying things, sharing ideas, pictures, and some small talk.
Thankfully, our group turned out to have worked out well. We were always ahead of schedule since we had a week’s head start on the assignment. I thought that this time compared to last time went smoother since I had previous experience with the assignment. However, I think we had an all-star group that really worked hard to get all of the milestones done. On the Japanese team, they had a good mix of people, including one who really liked doing video editing. This was a huge asset for us.
In making recommendations for the future would be to really try to foster the team interactions between Hawaii and Japan. Perhaps there could be more team to team - as in (2) Hawaii/Japan teams check in with each other to see how things are going. Since we’re all classmates on our side and they on theirs that might help to further foster good working relationships. This may also help to flesh out what’s working well and what’s not working well by comparing notes earlier on in the process.