Activity Theory

This is my understanding from the Morf and Webber definition of activity theory from 2000.

At the moment I'm not sure how I feel about this theory. From this definition it seems like the opposite of what you would ever think. I would have thought thinking about the project first to get a clear understanding of what you have to do would be the logical way to go. It doesn't seem right to "do" things to come up with your goals without first actually thinking about it.

The Structure

(Reddy, 2012)

SUBJECT

Individuals who form the team and their skills and experience

OBJECT

The common project, the goal that everyone is working towards

TOOL

The design process, the steps that go into executing the project

RULES

Conditions and expectations as to how team members act (spoken agreements or expected)

DIVISION OF LABOUR

The delegation of work load and tasks to each member

From what I understand as I read through, this activity theory was very much applied to our projects during this subject. Activity theory is structured in a way so that each member of a specific discipline are each delegated tasks. The tasks are completed separately to the other members of the group. They then all come together with a higher positioned member of the team to discuss and share their findings and results. In our case our person of higher status in our team were our two tutors, Louise and Rachel. So because Louise and Rachel were our educators or "co-workers" these were the people we collaborated with. However, we did also have team collaboration without the educators. We had team meetings outside of tutorial times which were significant times of collaboration and team work. The charrettes were definitely points of productive collaboration in the way of individuals coming together and working with each other on the same task. Although this was directed by the educators it very much relied on collaboration across the disciplines of the student team members.

Tools that we used:

Facebook Group

We had an online facebook group which was a fantastic resource for our team. From past group work for uni assignments, these groups have always had a large impact on the project and assist in making collaboration so much easier and accessible. Although myself and the two architects were the primary users of this tool. Our interior designer was not much of a facebook user and so it was a bit difficult for her to be involved in our discussions, but this understandable. She did make a solid effort though in making appearances and checking the group for updates and progress. Our other Industrial designer is a regular facebook user. However he seemed to avoid conversations within the group and not contribute much input. In the final week of the project, it had reached the point where his absence from the facebook group was affecting the rest of the team and hindering our progress. As an avid facebook user it was expected of him to respond to any posts related to him. There is no doubt that this absence was due to the fact that he had not done his work. He was avoiding the group and not responding to anyone. This made it very frustrating as we, as a group could not move on without the work of our industrial designer.

Mobile Phones

These were great for communication inside and outside of uni. Before or after our classes we could message round and see if any of our team mates were free. This was great to be able to make the best out of spare time. Small meetings were fit in, where they otherwise wouldn't have occurred.

Paper

During actual periods of face to face collaboration within the team, one of the most beneficial tools that we utilised was paper. As can be seen throughout the images below they proved a real base that helped us to plan out our ideas and communicate what we were thinking much more efficiently than trying to verbally explain it. We found that having everyone being able to write or draw on the one page was a really effective system for us. Rather than having one person write and everyone else looking on, the collaboration became really stimulating and productive when everyone became involved. We achieved some great results from this and proved to be a great way of helping each individual have the same understanding of what was happening.

Community

I think this was a downfall for us. We did not have any connection to the community. We did a site visit early on in the project but that was as far as it went. The site was in Fig Tree Pocket which is where I live so I had some insight into the area. In hindsight I should have utilised this much more and taken advantage of this. So perhaps I let my down in that respect. Further investigation into Lone Pine, the street of the site and research into nearby childcare centres would have all been of a great benefit to the team. Another way in which we could have connected with the community is through speaking to parents with children about what they would want in a childcare. It seems shocking now, but doing something like this didn't once ever come up in a team discussion. I think this could have been a major set back for us. We failed to consider collaboration with the community, which for me now is a very obvious and advantageous part of collaboration.

Rules:

At the beginning of the project we did not establish a set of team rules. This could be a contributing factor to our team problems toward the end of the project. I suppose being in third year, we all assumed the best of each other. We have all had countless team projects and so we were all aware of the expectations. These are the expectations and "silent" rules of group work that I didn't think needed to be verbalised or made official;

1. To complete all assigned tasks by the deadlines given (or if not able to inform team members in advance)

2. If unable to attend a tutorial or meeting make team members aware of this as early as possible, and preferably give the reason

3. The three strikes and you're out policy

4. Help out other team members whenever required

5. Come with motivation and a positive attitude

6. Try your best and put in a decent effort

7. Listen to others and be open minded with others' ideas

I think these are very standard expectations and they do not need to be clarified. However, these rules were not completely enforced throughout the duration of the project. Perhaps this was because the rules hadn't been stated explicitly, so no one felt they had the right to say anything. Early on during charettes, Ind1 often came without the research and work which had been assigned the previous week. No one said anything however. This could be because it was quite early on it the project and so our Leader hadn't been completely established. Perhaps everyone was still a bit shy with each other and not willing to make a stand for the group. This was definitely an issue. This would have been where all of our problems began. Through giving Ind1the impression that it was ok to not do the required work and be able to get away with it resulted in a reoccurring incident that only got worse. Myself and Int1 were definitely team workers (Belbin, 2010) and preferred to avoid tension. I don't think Int1 really noticed the issue with Ind1 as she wasn't too involved with the final phase tasks of putting everything together. I had another team with Ind1 for another subject and so I, personally wasn't too keen on creating any friction with him. The two architects began to get quite annoyed with Ind1's behaviour in the last week. This was really the last straw for them. As can be read about in a previous post, the night before our final presentation it was extremely difficult to get work from our industrial designer. As a result of his very poor effort throughout the whole project, as a team we decided that it was fair to give full responsibility to Ind1 for the 10% publication. This was a good outcome for the team as it would make up for all the extra work and time that went in to making up for his poor efforts. Our leader took on the responsibility to inform Ind1 of this decision, which was good of him. I am not sure what was said exactly but it definitely got taken care of. If the problem had been dealt with earlier after the first signs, the final stages of the project would have run a lot smoother. Our team leader needed to be firmer and enforce the team expectations in order to obtain a more positive and successful team experience.

Division of Labour:

The delegation of tasks was very clear. Arch1, our leader did a great job in assigning tasks and making sure there were clear goals for the next week. The work load was very equal throughout the duration. Although we did have Arch2 who towards the end volunteered to do many of the jobs that could have been spread out evenly. Due to his perfectionist nature he found it difficult to rely on others and so took a lot of the load from others and put them on himself. This stressed him out and he couldn't cope with it all in the end. So tasks were distributed again in a manageable way. Arch2 needed to have more confidence in his team and believe that rest of us were also capable of doing a good job.

Object:

We all shared a common goal for the end result of our project, but we also each had our own individual goals which related to our disciplines. I believe we reached our goal in the final submission. On the whole, we worked really well together as a team and I think we all had quite an enjoyable time working together. I am happy with our end result and quite pleased with the way my landscaping experience turned out. I learnt new skills from this project that I am quite excited about, and I have no doubt that each and everyone of us in the team learnt a valuable amount from each of the disciplines and gained a much more informed understanding of what they really do.