Peer to peer learning is a very cost-effective way to exchange and transfer knowledge as it could be a win-win case. In this blog, I’ll focus on reviewing and learning from my peer’s blog post. The blog I reviewed is “Practices in Boosting Team Productivity”, written by Winbin Lu, who is one of my team members for machine learning projects. My comments for my peer’s blog post will be based on two aspects. One aspect is about blog writing skills, such as blog structure or pictures inserted; the other aspect is about blog content, for example, some ideas that I agree or disagree.
A clear structure for easily reading
Winbin’s blog post is in a very clear structure, which starts with an overall introduction at the beginning, then separates into three parts and at the end sums up using one paragraph. His introduction is about his practicum team in MSBA program and states that he is going to talk about how they increase productivity in the team. The following three paragraphs are three different points of how to increase productivity in a team. I really like his way to give sub-titles. His sub-titles give a general summary about the content. For example, instead of simply subtitling as “Leadership”, he subtitled the second part as “Leadership in Setting Goals and Expectations”, which is not quite long, but still provides a brief summary about this part. Another thing I like that is he used some pictures in the blog to divide the content, which makes it more interesting for audience to read. But I think if the last picture could be more related to the topic of that part, it will be more meaningful and appropriate to be there.
Interesting topics for capturing readers’ attention
The other aspect is about content. The blog post is very readable and fluent. I like the third point about how to increase their team productivity, which is deep work without distractions.
Concentration without distractions is quite important not only for team productivity but also for individual. I usually check my phone every ten minutes even if there is no nonfiction on it. Smart phone is one of the major distractions for my work. There is a study showing that having the phone nearby can still hurt work performance even if it’s not buzzing or ringing. Winbin’s team trying to cut themselves without any distractions like smart phone is really a good practice to increase team productivity. But I doubt a little bit about if the total time of 6 to 8 hours they focus on deep working without distractions really helps to increase productivity. As what I discussed in my own blog, sometimes the team needs appropriate breaks to have a rest to ensure a higher productivity. So, maybe a shorter time range for deep working would be more reasonable.
To sum up, my peer Winbin’s post is very easily readable, and it includes some interesting topics and useful thoughts that could inspire others about how to increase productivity. Although there is something that could be improved, I still get fun when reading his blog and it’s a very nice reading experience.
Citation:
Lu, Wenbin. “Practices in Boosting Team Productivity.” Medium, Medium, 23 Jan. 2020, medium.com/@wblu/practices-in-boosting-team-productivity-a03d15c8cdad.
Lebowitz, Shana. “Your Smartphone Is Distracting You at Work. Even If It’s Switched Off.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/your-phone-is-killing-your-ability-to-focus-at-work-even-if-you-think-it-isnt.
