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?
You described the situation very well and I have observed this happening in group projects I have supervised as a teacher in the past.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if Myo became too arrogant about his superior skills in programming etc and thought it gave him the right to completely dominate the project.
When there three of you in a group, the fairest solution is that if two agree on a certain method than that should have been the one adopted.
Perhaps one of you should have told Myo in a friendly way that although you appreciated his help with your work, he was acting unreasonably ignoring his co-group members ideas. However, I realise that this is easier said than done.
Mrs Richardson
Hi Zaw,
ReplyDeleteI like your account of the difficulties in doing group projects especially when faced with group members who consistently insistent of their own views. I believe many of us would have shared the same experience in one way or another during the course of our studies.
I agree with Mrs Richardson that decision based on the majority's view should be the fairest. If I were to have a group member like Myo, I would discuss with the other teams mates to see how we could face Myo as a team. As a team we would try to politely highlight the problem the group is facing. In doing so, we may employ the following steps.
(1)Make Myo understand that all of us have a common objective, which is to do our best for the project.
(2)Try to impress upon Myo that being a group meant that we need to work together.
(3)Describe to Myo how his insistence to carry out the project in a certain way is not well received. In doing so, we would have to be as descriptive and less evaluative as possible.
(4)Express our hope of what we wish to do as a group.
Cheers
Caroline
Hi Zaw,
ReplyDeleteI most emphatically agree that project work in universities face this problem a great deal. Being in the same faculty does not mean that our level of competencies are similar. Especially for me in Science, there are people who have differing areas of expertise (for example in terms of practical or academic skills).
I have encountered your sort of problem before, with 1 or 2 obviously superior minds in my group of 4. Adding to that was a language barrier as a group member was a chinese national and sometimes had difficulty communicating her ideas across to the rest of us. Thankfully, the other 2 of us were able to keep the peace and bridge the gap between the 'smart fellas'. It took a combination of patience and much discussion to arrive at a compromise many times. You might not have the time factor as it is a big project, but everyone has to realise that they have to sacrifice something for the greater good. It is the common goal (of perhaps completing the project well) that has to be emphasized, and the realisation that each person needs the group. That no man is an island. Having peer assessment is also a very effective method of keeping people more reasonable.
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Jonathan Lee