Bianca Lopez Reflection Post #1

  Slides, Struggles, and Success! 

When I volunteered to become a project manager, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I heard from Professor Sherri was “this is something you could put on your résumé” and “you won’t be part of a group; you’ll be helping me”. The idea of some of the workload being lifted off my shoulders intrigued me. I figured that not being part of a specific group would mean less work. I’ve been told that I am a very well-spoken person. I know that I’m a very good group leader and I knew that becoming a “project manager” for this class would make a team leader of sorts, which I was excited about! But I didn’t realize that the workload would be just as taxing as being a regular group member. I underestimated Sherri when she said, “you won’t have more or less work than everyone else”.

I had to learn how to work with every single one of my classmates. And it’s safe to say that everyone I worked with for our past presentation were all individually amazing. I was able to communicate with everyone efficiently, connect with them socially, and even crack a couple jokes and get out some laughs. 

Something I was extremely nervous about; was not being able to collaborate with my fellow project manager, Erika. I was worried that me and her wouldn’t be able to connect and would be unable to become well-acquainted with each other. To my surprise, Erika turned out to be one of the sweetest, understanding, and smartest teammates I could’ve asked for. She was my right-hand woman throughout this entire process. We work together to create introductions and conclusions for every group’s presentation. We learned to work efficiently and progressively. But our responsibilities didn’t stop there. We were in charge of keeping everyone informed on things such as expectations for the presentation; giving the group members ideas for their presentations; and ultimately making sure that everyone was collaborating and working together. 

But you may be wondering, what was it like working with everyone all at once? The simple answer is that it was extremely stressful, but well-worth the wild ride.

 

Chapter 3 – Intercultural Communication

Chapter 3 was all about intercultural communication. Intercultural communication involves verbal and nonverbal interactions and understanding how cultural differences can foster different meanings. As soon as I started reading the chapters and started doing my own personal research, I fell in love with the topic. I was in charge of the presenting introduction for this chapter. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk about, but I knew I wanted the introduction to be interesting so that my classmates would be engaged in the conversation and become eager to learn more. 

While researching the topic online, I came across a TED talk by Helena Merschdorf, a language specialist and a certified translator. Her discussion was about intercultural communication, and the hook that she used to grasp her audience was about different hand signals, and what they mean to different people. I used this as my main inspiration for my introduction and decided to explain different hand gestures, and what they mean in different cultures. To my surprise, a lot of my classmates were very intrigued by my introduction. I was afraid of coming off as boring or repetitive, and I was extremely happy to hear that my classmates were very interested in what I was talking about. I wrapped up my discussion about hand gestures, and allowed for Group 1 to continue the presentation.

 

Chapter 9 – Communicating in Groups

I found this chapter to be a little bit ironic, since the topic Group 2 was presenting was exactly what they had to do amongst themselves – communicate in a group. When working with Group 2, I found them to be very organized, structured and neat with their presentation. But besides that, they were also extremely educated on this chapter. For Group 2, I was responsible for making the conclusion for their presentation. I decided to keep it very short and simple and gave a quick overview of everything that we learned during the presentation. Group 2 discussed different types of groups that involve communication; identifiers for a healthy group; and how to make communicating in your respective groups, better and more productive. 

This chapter was very important for this class since a lot of it must deal with working in group environments for our primary assignments. I feel like Group 2 was able to exhibit communication in groups perfectly. Throughout the entire presentation, they were keeping up with who was next to present and telling everyone that they did a good job once they finished. Group 2 was a delight to work with, and I’m excited to work with them again.

 

Chapter 10 – Group Leadership and Problem-Solving Skills

The topic of this chapter really grabbed my attention, since leadership was exactly what I was working on while being a Project Manager for this first round of presentations. Group 3 discussed what it means to be a proper leader, the different types of leadership roles as well as historical figures who were considered leaders for their time. I noticed that the majority of Group 3’s presentation focused on leadership. I asked them what they wanted me to talk about, since I wanted them to be involved in my introduction and have an idea of what I would be covering. One of the group members asked me to focus on the problem-solving side of the chapter, since they don’t cover it much in the presentation itself. I thought it was a great idea, and I got started on my introduction right away.

Finding a interesting and clever fact about problem-solving was very hard. I didn’t know exactly what to say and how to keep it in engaging for the audience. I landed on researching different problem-solving techniques, and came across the Five Whys technique. It was exactly what I needed. It was quick, simple, and straight to the point. The Five Whys technique is a problem-solving strategy that utilizes a simple root word to uncover the underlying issues of a particular problem. I gave a description and a relatable example for the class, and once I finished, I allowed for Group 3 to continue their presentation accordingly. 

 

Overall reflection

I have no regrets becoming a project manager. Despite how stressful it was managing three groups at once; having three different slideshows to keep track of; and trying to find the perfect way to introduce and close the presentations, I had so much fun seeing all of it come together and working with my classmates in such a creative way. I’m very happy with how the presentations turned out and I’m extremely proud of my classmates for coming together and making such well-thought-out presentations on such short notice. Only having four days to work on a 30-minute group presentation is no easy feat. I feel like everyone deserves a pat on the back for working with me and Erika during this process. I really hope that the rest of my classmates are just as excited as I am to work on another presentation together and further learn how to better our communication and collaboration skills.