5. Team dynamics and final projet#

5.1 Project Analysis and Design#

In the beginning of the course, we had to create a problem tree, and we had to transform our problem tree into an objective tree. We got our idea from the last year’s project on Why Students Don’t Eat Healthy ? I worked with Eva.

Here’s my trees :

I first made my trees on paper and later on, I also made it on Inkscape with images.

Problem tree :

The main problem is that the students don’t eat healthy. Indeed, the main causes are : not enough time, the cost of the groceries and no motivation. These causes have negative effects such as stress, a poor lifestyle, etc. Your physical and mental health are also impacted, so you are less concentrated in class for example.

Solution tree :

To be able to have a healthy lifestyle, you can try to cook with other people. It is often boring to cook for yourself, so you’re more intended to eat junk food. You can also find simple and fast recipes on the internet. The advantages are that you’re going to meet new people, and you’re going to save money and time.

5.2 Group formation and brainstorming on societal issues#

5.2.1) My object#

For the formation of groups for our projects, we had to find and bring in class an object that represents a theme or a societal issue that we cared about. We didn’t have a lot of time to think, so the first thing that came to my mind is that right now in my neighborhood, we are talking a lot about energy consumption. Indeed, they are trying to set up solar panels. That’s why I decided to bring a lamp.

For me, it’s important to make people aware of energy consumption. For example, do you know how much energy is consumed when a lamp is plugged in 🧐.

5.2.2) My opinion#

I was able to make a group with Moira, and Sif. They are students in computer sciences. Louis and I are bioengineering students. Our group is interdisciplinary. We will have the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills outside our initial field of study. Also, working with people from different disciplines fosters mutual understanding and communication.

I really enjoyed sharing my ideas in this way. The other people in my group brought a helmet for the cyclist safety, another member brought a tap for excessive water consumption and finally a piece of garbage to represent garbage waste. It’s true that our objects weren’t very much linked. But we still had to form a group.

It was a great way to learn and especially unique for the formation of our team members. This allowed us to get to know people from other sections.

Afterward, It was a bit difficult to get into a group because everyone had brought quite different things and there were no objects related to energy consumption. But eventually we were able to form a group together.

5.2.3) The problematics ?#

We were able to find different themes that interested us such as sustainability, environment, recycling, waste, climate change, etc.

We have to make the invisible, visible, that’s our main goal. Likewise, we talked about different problems, but they are not yet finalized, maybe we will find other ideas in the meantime. For now, here are the different issues that we discussed :

📍 How can we raise awareness about microplastics ?

📍 How to reduce garbage waste ?

📍 How to deal with noise pollution ?

📍 How to manage space pollution?

📍 How to sensibilize to invisible diseases ?

📍 How to replace sand ?

5.3 Group dynamics#

We all agreed that in our group we have to respect these values : punctuality, mutual aid, respect and communication.

5.3.1) Communication#

In class, we learned that it’s really important that every person in the group feel free to speak and give ideas, so we can for example start the meeting with a fun fact or a joke so that everyone can be relaxed and release all the stress if they’re too shy to speak in a group. “Briser la glace” like we say it in French. To make sure that everyone can express themselves on the subject, we will take turns to speak. Communication is key !

5.3.2) Distribution of tasks and roles#

In my opinion, it’s really important to assign different tasks and roles for the proper functioning of a group.

To assign tasks, we are going to use Trello. It’s a web-based project management tool that utilizes a card/board metaphor for organizing tasks and projects. For example, we are going to create a list with different tasks and if anyone really wants to do a specific, they can put the task under their name. We’re going to distribute the tasks equitably.

For the roles we have the secretary who is going to take notes on what we are doing in each meeting. Then we have the person who is going to manage the time and make sure that we don’t do everything at the last moment. Lastly, we have the animator and the person who is going to make us laugh, will try to have a good group dynamic. We will change these roles every week.

5.3.3) Feedback#

I think that it’s a good idea to give feedback once in a while.  It can be positive or negative, both can have a good impact on our behavior. For example, if a person in the group tells me that I don’t speak enough so for the next meeting I will try to express myself more.