To Team or Not to Team

 This week, I was tasked with making the decision whether to work independently on my portfolio project or with a team. First, I did some research into different methods of teamwork. through my research, I came across two interesting articles. One was about how teamwork is done at Microsoft. The Five Behaviors program, a case study done by Darci Kneidl focused on "trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results, allowed those at Microsoft to work well together. Through the implementation of these principles, with honesty being a larger part than before, the team Kniedl created worked well and efficiently together (Becker, 2015). Another article talked about surrealism as an art form, and how artists use their unconscious thoughts to create their work, and this article discussed how they let creativity flow in their work. I might not use my unconscious thoughts in my project, but I think that I can utilize more creativity on the design aspect.  If I chose to work with a team, I would try to incorporate the Five Behaviors.

When looking in my class for people I would be interested in working with, one of my friends stood out to me. Jacob Le has had lots of experience with digital editing, so I thought that our collaboration could be successful. In our assignment in looking into social media accounts, I looked over Jacob's. I found that he was a part of the Technology Student Association, and posted a picture of his team and the conference he attended. This showed me he has collaborated with others before, as TSA is a team competition. He also posted pictures with his family, as well as a nice landscape photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, showing he can take good photographs (essential to the magazine project). Although many of our personal interests align, Jacob had just made a schedule change out of this class yesterday. He can give me advice on how to use InDesign, but he cannot be my teammate in this project.

One activity I decided to do myself was the Lost at Sea activity. It's an activity where you imagine you are in an emergency Lost at Sea scenario, and that you have a list of items to choose from, ranking them in importance to you. As I have been a student from home, the internet at school went down. This resulted in my completion of this activity with my family instead of my classmates. I thought it was interesting in how we all chose different things; my dad put mesh and ropes up higher, while my eleven year old sister Gemma put the boxes of chocolate bars within her top ten items. The discussion after we had made our lists went well, everyone ranked the water as the first choice. My fifteen year old sister Rylee and I had almost identical lists, while my mom and Gemma had similar rankings. We came to somewhat of an agreement, we just voted that Dad had the best list. It turned out he had matched his pretty well with the official Navy results, ranking items like rope and mesh high, and chocolate bars lower.  We worked on honesty and listened to each other, valuing the Five Behaviors. This was a fun collaborative activity, but I wished I could have done it with my classmates. I think this would have been a good way to determine if there was anyone I hadn't met in class who would be a good match to work with, since Jacob is no longer an option.

My decision on whether to work with a team or a partner was heavily influenced by current events as well. As coronavirus has caused several students, including myself, to be sent home and quarantined due to the school's contract tracing procedures, I feel it would be difficult if my team members were sent home, or I was when we were preparing our projects. Also, I think I have found that independently doing research and thinking creatively has been beneficial to me- I have begun to refine my writing skills through these blogs, a habit that will benefit me throughout this class and in my future studies, after I was inspired by the article on surrealism. I am not worried about working alone, as I can keep myself accountable and stay on pace towards finishing my goals.