Group Process & Criteria

Almost anywhere you go, you will see symbols and signs; different forms of cumunicating directions to help you find your way around. Whether its at the local mall or in a parking garage. Over time, the way these signs were created have evolved; sometimes not even for the better.

In my Concept Development class, my classmates and I were given an assignment. We had to analyse last weeks homework, the project where we had to create comic cells based on the 'How I Made It to College' exercise, and come up with a criteria on how we were going to rank each persons final product; from the one of which was best delivered, to the one which was the least successful. We had twenty minutes to complete this exercise. My classmates and I came up with a list of four criterias, to which we would be scoring; 1) Clarity of the Message, 2) Neatness, 3) Creativity, and 4) The use of Color. This assignment was definitely a challenge. We all learned immediately that communication was key to completing the assignment successfully, and we failed. Right off the bat, we all jumped in and tried to take the 'leaders' position. We all bumped heads, stumbled over each others words; it was a mess. We were all talking instead of trying to listen and understand what each of us had to say. It wasn't until over 10 minutes into our time that we finally agreed on a scoring strategy and got to work.

Once our time was over, our instructor, Jimmy Moss, questioned us about why we chose that list of criteria and what each factor meant. Some of us answered these questions unsuccessfully. As we analysed what the original assignment was, we learned as a class that it isn't easy to just quickly navigate through thirty or so stories from thirty different perspectives. We needed a hell of a lot more time than twenty minutes to properly analyze each comic strip. Furthermore, we discovered that our list of criteria were not individually strong enough. And last but not least, our biggest challenge was how we handled a group process, a group effort. How we worked as a team to complete the objective. I learned today that sometimes, when working with a team, you have to know when to speak and when to just shut up and listen. I think, overall, this was our biggest challenge.