Compromise Compromise Compromise

There are many ways in which people come to a consensus. Sometimes it can get hectic. In a group decision, there are many different people we come across. We have those that 'compete to win', those that Avoid, those that compromise, those that accommodate, and finally those that Collaborate. My role in this whole ordeal was someone who was willing to compromise. I knew there was alot at stack and that everybody was going to look out for their own self interest. So the only way i saw fit to act was to compromise. In the class there was a few students whom felt they had to compete to win, but i feel that this ultimately slowed the classes progress. Of course student have every right to look out for their own interest, especially those that did well on the exam, but too much of this can blur the groups goal. I think collaborating is also an excellent way of coming to a decision. And there were some people in the class that i wished would think about avoidance. i guess this is why most of the time people are not required to come to a unanimous decision. Because too many people doing too many things results in disaster. I guess its true what they say, "too many cooks spoil the broth"

That's an egg-cellent idea

When i first looked at the planning process, i thought to myself 'we don't need to go through all this junk'. But my views quickly changed with our class assignment. We had to put together a contraption from 8 straws and tape. Okay, simple enough. We broke the time frame down to trace our progress. Step 1 Done!!! We understood our resources were limited and capitalized on all our strengths and catered for weakness. Step 2 Complete!! Then came our biggest blunder. My design team quickly came to an agreement on the primary design. It made sense on paper and we were fairly confident in its structural integrity. What we failed to do is come up with alternative designs in the case that the primary one fell though. Step 3 Incomplete!! Since we already made up our minds on the first design, there was no need to choose amongst different alternatives. We did however assign roles for each person of the group. Step 4 incomplete!! Then our worst fears came to reality. The design that made so much sense on paper just didn't when implemented. Since there was no alternative plan we had to improvise. We taped and bent straws like madness. In the end, we designed something that looked like it had been in a tornado. Step 5 Disastrous!! This whole episode mad me rethink the importance of the planning process. Had we Done step 3 correctly and came up with alternative plans, we may have succeeded in our implementation. I guess this is a classic case of "you live and you learn".