Post 2: Resolving Interpersonal Conflict
We, university students, have to do a lot of projects in every semester. Some projects are individual projects and some are group projects. By doing group projects, we can gain a lot of experience through the sharing of ideas and knowledge among team members. We can also help each other when we encounter problems along the way. Through this, stronger friendship can be built among team members. However, conflicts can arise when people’s ideas and concepts are different.
Last year, I did a “smart home design” project with another two members, Myo and Aye. This project is both hardware and software project. During the first two weeks, we discussed about how to design an innovative smart home system. To build our smart home system, many functions such as fire alarm, lighting, thief-alarm, door keypad, rain detector, plant and elder care system were installed. For every system, we had to design our own circuits and had to write our own programs. We separated our individual tasks to speed up our project progress.
After five or six weeks, we saw that Myo had better troubleshooting skill and programming skill. Thus, both of us often consulted Myo about our individual circuit and programming problems. Myo also helped us and solved our problems. After eight weeks, we all tried to combine our individual circuit and programming parts.
Beginning of Conflict
From that time, conflicts started between Myo and both of us because of differences in thoughts and ideas. When we combined one circuit and another circuit, we had to use a lot of wires. Myo wanted to use telephone cable instead of using normal wires to reduce wire complexity. However, both of us did not agree to use telephone cable because it was very difficult to take out the telephone cable shielded cover with cutters although that idea can reduce wire complexity. But, Myo did not accept our argument. We did not want to argue too much with Myo although we did not want to use telephone cable. When we tried to take out telephone cable shielded cover with cutter, we saw that it took more time than normal wire. Finally, Myo accepted normal wires for circuit connections. Before he accepted our suggestion, both of us were annoyed very much because we spent a lot of time in cutting and taking out telephone cable.
When we built our smart home, Myo wanted to use wood as it will be stronger. I suggested them to use plastic instead of using wood because we also needed to mount our circuits inside the smart home. To mount circuits, we needed to drill holes. If wood was used, we needed to use drilling machine in the mechanical lab for making holes. If plastic were used, it would be easier to make holes because of just using knife. Moreover, circuit mounting positions were also not fixed. If we used plastic, it would be easy to make holes whenever changing mounting positions. I did argument with Myo for using plastic. During that period, I felt disappointed him although he is better than us.
I told Aye that Myo was a superstitious and over self-confidence person. Even though Myo is better in troubleshooting and programming than us, he did not accept our suggestions during project discussions when he considered that his idea and concept was right. To say the truth, it was very difficult to communicate and discuss with Myo. During the argument time, we felt very annoyed and disappointed each other. It also wasted a lot of time.
All in all, friendship can be strained if we cannot communicate well each other while doing group projects. Basically, when we do group project, everyone can contribute different ideas and thoughts to the project. We need to respect ideas and concepts of other people whether we agree or not with them. Among different ideas and concepts, we can then try to extract best one for the project. By doing this, we can promote stronger friendship among team members and make the project more successful.
How will you do if one of your group members behaves like Myo?
We, university students, have to do a lot of projects in every semester. Some projects are individual projects and some are group projects. By doing group projects, we can gain a lot of experience through the sharing of ideas and knowledge among team members. We can also help each other when we encounter problems along the way. Through this, stronger friendship can be built among team members. However, conflicts can arise when people’s ideas and concepts are different.
Last year, I did a “smart home design” project with another two members, Myo and Aye. This project is both hardware and software project. During the first two weeks, we discussed about how to design an innovative smart home system. To build our smart home system, many functions such as fire alarm, lighting, thief-alarm, door keypad, rain detector, plant and elder care system were installed. For every system, we had to design our own circuits and had to write our own programs. We separated our individual tasks to speed up our project progress.
After five or six weeks, we saw that Myo had better troubleshooting skill and programming skill. Thus, both of us often consulted Myo about our individual circuit and programming problems. Myo also helped us and solved our problems. After eight weeks, we all tried to combine our individual circuit and programming parts.
Beginning of Conflict
From that time, conflicts started between Myo and both of us because of differences in thoughts and ideas. When we combined one circuit and another circuit, we had to use a lot of wires. Myo wanted to use telephone cable instead of using normal wires to reduce wire complexity. However, both of us did not agree to use telephone cable because it was very difficult to take out the telephone cable shielded cover with cutters although that idea can reduce wire complexity. But, Myo did not accept our argument. We did not want to argue too much with Myo although we did not want to use telephone cable. When we tried to take out telephone cable shielded cover with cutter, we saw that it took more time than normal wire. Finally, Myo accepted normal wires for circuit connections. Before he accepted our suggestion, both of us were annoyed very much because we spent a lot of time in cutting and taking out telephone cable.
When we built our smart home, Myo wanted to use wood as it will be stronger. I suggested them to use plastic instead of using wood because we also needed to mount our circuits inside the smart home. To mount circuits, we needed to drill holes. If wood was used, we needed to use drilling machine in the mechanical lab for making holes. If plastic were used, it would be easier to make holes because of just using knife. Moreover, circuit mounting positions were also not fixed. If we used plastic, it would be easy to make holes whenever changing mounting positions. I did argument with Myo for using plastic. During that period, I felt disappointed him although he is better than us.
I told Aye that Myo was a superstitious and over self-confidence person. Even though Myo is better in troubleshooting and programming than us, he did not accept our suggestions during project discussions when he considered that his idea and concept was right. To say the truth, it was very difficult to communicate and discuss with Myo. During the argument time, we felt very annoyed and disappointed each other. It also wasted a lot of time.
All in all, friendship can be strained if we cannot communicate well each other while doing group projects. Basically, when we do group project, everyone can contribute different ideas and thoughts to the project. We need to respect ideas and concepts of other people whether we agree or not with them. Among different ideas and concepts, we can then try to extract best one for the project. By doing this, we can promote stronger friendship among team members and make the project more successful.
How will you do if one of your group members behaves like Myo?
