Part of the assessment criteria for Interpersonal and Organisation Negotiation was a group analysis of a case study, which required intense discussions. As per instructions, we formed a group of four members consisting of the following individuals: Vicky Phan, Tom Tchung Tu Lay, Sultan Alanazi and Risto Jon Angeloski. A suggestion was raised that we select someone to head the group but after careful deliberation, we came to the agreement that being a small team, all members should be regarded as equals and as such there was no point in appointing a group leader.
Overall as a group, we worked fine and the cohesion among members was superb. We did not hold regular meetings but we made creditable steps every single time we met. Most of these meetings were brief discussions that we mostly held after class. The primary reason as to why we could not find better times to sit as a group was that all the group members had previous work commitments and because of the disparity in the units we take, we all had different class schedules.
However, we were under regular communication with each other via e-mail, text messages and phone calls; media through which we were able to comfortably share tasks and ideas. At one point we had to engage in group chats over the internet, an experience that helped us exposed us to creative methods of using available technology in the attainment of educational objectives.
After initial discussions, the group decided that the best way to tackle this assignment was that every group member prepare a draft of the entire assignment. The reason for this was that it would have been extremely difficult to divide the work evenly based on the complexity of the topic question. The method that we chose also ensured that each member had an idea of the other members’ thought patterns as well as the compounding effect of enabling all of us to generate a concrete understanding of the subject matter. This was a factor that immensely increased our combined group knowledge and intelligence.
After preparing the drafts, we then sat down and each member presented his/her findings. We then actively debated the presentations while pointing out the shortfalls and even adding more information to drafts that did not sufficiently exhaust certain points. We also had to select a method for how the information would be collated. As a group, we decided that one person should combine all the work completed by individual members and prepare a final draft, with group members volunteering to complete areas of the assignment where more in-depth information was needed.
The core factor that united us as a team was that all decisions were made with every group member present. Each member was given a chance to air his/her views and no meeting was closed without each member satisfactorily voicing his/her concerns. At no point were decisions made without the consent of each and every group member. The members were all open-minded and whenever contention arose we discussed the possible options and arrived at the best possible option. We came to the agreement that the final draft of the assignment had to be complete and ready for presentation to the assessment panel by a certain date and time, and we all applied ourselves fully to see the realization of this objective.