COMM2386 - Interdisciplinary Communication Project

Final Reflection_Social media campaign on RMIT Sport & Recreation Department

TRINH HOAI THI-s3245954
Lecturer: Landon Carnie
Submit on 11/1/2012

It’s been a while since I worked with S&R team on the social media campaign for “RMIT Sport and Recreation Department”. Working with the team on this campaign was a real eye-opener in terms of lessons learnt. I’ve found myself more professional in working with other people during the campaign. It’s proud to say that the team had a rough, rush start, but in the end teamwork spirit is what kept everything going well. Different people will have different definitions of teamwork. In my point of view, teamwork is not one’s self managing one’s self but a group of individuals managing each other. Such a challenge can present a variety of differences in terms of learning, communication styles, comprehension limitation, etc. Therefore, in this paper, I’d like to identify one of the most significant issues of teamwork that I’ve learnt during the campaign, that is, Collaboration.
Collaboration is just like playing football when a person passes the ball, other people will attempt to keep it. Once a person loses the ball, the whole team will be affected. Indeed, collaboration is actively finding an effective way to perform the task and to work well with the team in order to get high quality of work. Collaboration works best when team members sit together, set goals and values for what team members will do, then share those common goals and values. Participation, communication, trust, honesty and respect are extremely important in collaboration.
So, why is this significant to me? Well, because I’ve faced with challenges in collaborating with others many times during the campaign. As this course does not have frequent classes and team members were busy with their own work, we did not have much time talking face to face. Most of the conversations are on telephone, Google Plus, Google Mail and Google Docs. Virtual meetings are fine, but they lack some of the essential collaboration capacities that only a face-to face meeting provides and sometimes lead to misunderstanding others’ expectations, which is my case. At the beginning of the campaign, the big group is divided into smaller groups from two to three people to accomplish different tasks. My group was in charge of the Staff Profile tactic and writing reports. The main communication tool is telephone. Delegating tasks on the phone seems to be easy and direct at first. However, it led to many misunderstandings, excuses and inconveniences in the communication process among group members. It was hard for me to contact the sub-leader in the group via phone when I need an immediate help, but she did not pick up the phone. I also sent emails. Everyone in the team helped to call her but she did not reply until two days later. The bigger problem appeared when she called back, gave solutions and requirements for what I was searching and I misunderstood her requirements. This also happened between her and another person in the small group. The incident kept repeating two more time later on during group work. This repeating incident somehow showed the irresponsibility of everyone in the group because we did not negotiate to find an effective communication tool at the beginning. I do not blame neither on her nor on the incident by any means. I only want to state the inconveniences of using phone as the main communication tool and the lack of collaboration spirit among group members. The incidents resulted in process delayed and affected not only my group but also the rest of the team and the campaign process.
On the other hand, I realized that dividing the team into smaller groups is not always a wise solution. That is because the smaller groups might only concentrate on the things that they are doing and do not care about others’, do not collaborate with others’ work. This sometimes led to the inconsistency in teamwork and inconsistency between the process and the goals/objectives that were set from the beginning. Although we had reports after every meeting, it was hard to keep everybody reading those reports to keep track on the whole picture, the whole process. This might contribute to loosen the team/collaboration spirit.
If I had a chance to do things differently, I would also like to choose email as the main tool to communicate with other people to be more effective and professional. With emails, it takes time to write down the information and because of that, the information would be written more carefully and ideas would be fully represented. With phones, it is hard to remember, to catch up with or take note while we are talking. Hence, it might lead to misunderstanding during the conversation. If the group and the big team negotiated to find a suitable communication tool at first, the process wouldn’t have delayed, therefore, no conflicts. However, the team was good at reporting every meeting for everybody to keep track on, although team members seem no more read the report information from the middle till the end of the campaign.
Not only in this campaign project but also in my future career, I’d like to concentrate more on collaboration skill which is, in my opinion, one of the key factors contributing to the success of teamwork. The collaboration skills can show the professionalism and the responsibility of one’s self. Open discussion of issues to encourage contribution, proactivity and responsibility of team members will enhance the collaboration and reduce conflicts. In addition, it’s vital in any project that we have to look back to the big picture and the goals/objectives of the project so that we can consider to find solutions instead of focusing on problems because we can never change the situation if we keep blaming each other for the problems and do not give solutions together. Collaborate to give the best solution is not only beneficial to one’s self but also to the rest of the team. Finally, if we choose to divide the team into small groups, it would be effective to have reports after every meeting for team members to keep track on and visualize the whole campaign/project.
In conclusion I think this course and specifically the campaign project were very beneficial to my real life experience, especially to my future career. In my point of view, collaborating skills are invaluable in teamwork. Sometimes the collaboration is hard to those who have high ego, but we have to practice to overcome our self-esteem for the success of the team and for the trust of other people in us.