Play Ball! — Everyone Needs to Pitch In for Team Success
As a student at General Assembly (GA), I have come to truly appreciate the subtle nuances that occur during team brainstorming sessions. First, there is that need to avoid cannibalizing or repeating others’ ideas, while simultaneously adding a layer of originality to these responses or these wholly new contributions. The give and take of thoughts is like a championship sports team working in conjunction to get to a shared goal.
It’s like a basketball team passing the ball around the key to culminate in a three pointer in the corner wing. Or like a shortstop moving in to get a ground ball, while the second and first baseman await the throw to convert a double play as the pitcher backs up the infield.
What I garnered after working on a group project at General Assembly is that in strong teams, each member contributes to the group dialogue, thus maximizing the team’s resources, or human capital. By doing so, a team’s potential can be translated into more tangible results. For my team, it meant high quality specification documents, a comprehensive prototype and succinct, yet analytical feature annotations.
For the project, I worked with a team of two other User Experience (UX) Designers to create a phone application geared towards volunteerism and education. The application, Foundations, worked by aggregating opportunities for individuals to volunteer their time to teach a skill to those who wished to learn.
At first, during group work, I was hesitant to fully contribute to team brainstorming sessions. I would give my input but I would be guarded with my contributions. To be quite frank, I wasn’t sure if my ideas were ‘discussion worthy’. I was too focused on the notion of contributing ideas that would alter the dynamic of the discussion. I realize now that I was too focused on trying to ‘hit home runs’ with my ideas.
There was definitely a period of readjusting to group work in an academic setting, after having graduated from school a few years ago. My modus operandi has been to lead by example and to let the work speak for itself. However, I came to realize that the UX Design process is fueled by the constant flow of ideas that continuously improve upon itself.
This occurs because the product will go through cycles of edits and revisions. Putting forth ideas — even if they aren’t paradigm shifting thoughts — can lead to richer ideas through some form of consolidation, adjustment or criticism of another teammate’s views. Like gears in any running machine, each spoke needs to be in motion for the mechanism to function. The team dynamic works when everyone pitches in.
When I realized the need for every team member to contribute input, even if they were ‘bunts’ or ‘singles’ — or solid ideas that aren’t wholly earth-shattering — I learned to hone my craft and came up with my own insights on the process.
For starters, I came to the conclusion that any sort of idea rooted in evidence is a ‘discussion worthy’ idea— even if they aren’t ‘home runs’. Speaking from experience, as someone who plays in a recreational softball league in the summers, only swinging for home runs also gets you a horrendous stat line — in regards to team dynamic, one is left giving little input or ideas.
Also, if there is anything to learn from the movie, Moneyball, (other than that Jonah Hill deserves an Oscar for his ability to chameleon into different weights for roles), it’s that teams work better with people who just get on base. Anything goes. Singles, doubles, bunts or walks. Any well-formed thought, in the context of the UX design process, is valuable in keeping the method running smoothly.
I put these observations to use during a meeting with our team’s developer. During a short conference, I was able to ask a question and receive clarification about his process for using a certain software tool. My question gave him pause and elicited a rich discussion that enlightened the team on a method that we were mostly unaware of.
It was a simple interjection, based on a need to obtain clarification. It wasn’t a paradigm-shifting analysis of any sort. Yet, just like a well hit single or bunt, it helped my group move closer to its team goal. In my case, gaining a better understanding of the developer’s process in order to produce quality deliverables.
Now, as I write this brief, I am working on another group project. I have come to fully transform my thought process on giving input and recognize that even the smallest of ideas can foster further analysis and discussion. And to be honest, there’s a slight thrill in seeing my ideas working in conjunction with my teammates’ to create a wholly fresh and perceptive point. It motivates me to repeat that process in order to further enhance the team dialogue.
Looking back, I recognize that I was trying to reinvent the wheel, when I should have been focused on trying to use the wheel to simply move the conversation forward.
