What happened?

In this week’s course activities, we conducted a brainstorming exercise on “the use of socks”. We also learned how to screen ideas through the “creative thinking funnel” method. I realised that this creative design process not only exercises my innovative thinking. This can lay the foundation for future team management and project coordination capabilities.

So what?

At first, I thought this was a fun and easy creative thinking exercise. However, after I participated, I realised that the disagreements in teamwork were far more complicated than expected. There were significant differences in the understanding of “originality” among different members. This cognitive difference led to a deadlock in the scoring process. Faced with differences, I guided everyone to have a rational discussion around the numerical value. At the same time, in the initial exploration of team roles, I noticed that some members were good at organisation and coordination, and some were more inclined to creative thinking. Therefore, I began to try to observe everyone’s style to better cooperate later. In terms of internal team collaboration and division of labour, I began to realise how to use collective wisdom more efficiently in the future workplace (Littlejohn, Milligan, Margaryan, 2012). This will have a profound impact on me.

Establishing clear communication rules ensures that the team can focus on completing the task. As Tuckman (1965) emphasised, the “forming stage” in team development is key. At this stage, clear rules and goals are essential for teamwork. We gradually established a preliminary division of labour mechanism, which helped to match roles with the strengths of team members and laid a good foundation for the advancement of subsequent projects. According to Belbin (2010), effective role allocation is essential for team success. This is because it helps to ensure that the strengths of each member are fully utilised and thus improves the efficiency of teamwork.

Although the scoring system was used, the initial stage of evaluation was chaotic due to the lack of unified terminology definitions in advance. This even delayed our decision-making process. Some members were not prepared before the meeting, which also deviated from the topic of the discussion. The lack of a task board or sharing platform made the information flow unsmooth. This is just as Kolb (2014) pointed out in the reflective observation stage that the lack of structural feedback would hinder the internalisation and transformation of experience.

Now what?

Next, I suggest that the team introduce task management tools such as Trello. This can improve communication and collaboration within the team. It also provides me with valuable practical experience when I serve as a project manager or team leader in the future. For creative divergence, I will also suggest that the team adopt a “two-stage process” (first disperse thinking and speak freely, then concentrate on evaluating unified standards). Furthermore, I hope to continue to coordinate logic and emotion in the team in the future. This will ensure that the team can efficiently advance the project under the goal-oriented approach.