Recently in class we were asked to form teams and design a container that will stop an egg from breaking when it's dropped from about six feet. Our rules were that we could only use 8 straws and about 3 feet of masking tape and had to leave more than 50% of the egg visible.
Our team named our egg "Shelden" and created a container to protect him. Unfortunately, when we dropped our egg he cracked.
Now I want to review my group's methods and “Steps in the Planning Process” to see if I can find what went wrong.
Here are the steps:
Step 1. Define your goals and objectives
Know where you want to go; understand your deadlines. Be specific enough so that you will know you have arrived when you get there and/or how far off you are along the way.
Step 2. Determine your resources and current status vis-รก-vis objectives
Know where you stand in reaching the objectives from the start; identify resources, group strengths that work in your favor and group weaknesses that can hold you back.
Step 3. Develop several alternative strategies
Generate alternative scenarios for what may happen; identify for each scenario things that may help or hinder progress toward your objectives. Evaluate alternatives to assess strengths and weaknesses of each.
Step 4. Make a tactical plan
Choose the action alternative most likely to accomplish your objectives; describe what specifically must be done to implement this course of action; allocate jobs/roles throughout the team.
Step 5. Implement the plan and evaluate results
Take the planned action; measure progress toward objectives as implementation proceeds; take corrective actions and revise plan as needed.
- Which of the “Steps in the Planning Process” listed above did your team actually go through?
Step 1-Yes, our goals and objectives were very clear.
Step 2-Yes, we were clear on our resources and status.
Step 3-Yes, we formulated several strategies, evaluated them and eventually came up with a design that incorporated the best of each and reduced or removed the weaknesses.
Step 4-Yes, we created a tactical plan.
Step 5-Yes, we implemented the plan and evaluated the results. Our egg cracked only slightly, so I think we were all confident that we were on the right track and would be able to make changes that would greatly increase the chance that our egg would emerge from the drop unscathed.
- Which did you bypass? Why?
We did not bypass any of the steps.
- How do your evaluate your team’s ultimate performance given the effectiveness of your planning?
I was happy with our overall performance considering it was our first time working together but I imagine we would have done much better in subsequent exercises.
- How could you have been more effective as a group in the planning of your task?
I believe we could have been even more effective in our planning if we were more efficient in our development of alternative strategies. There was a lot of time wasted by many in our group going over unrealistic designs or designs that violated the rules. Many people were advocating their designs even after most of the group agreed the design would not work.
I'm wondering: Did other groups experience the same thing?
I agree developing alternative strategies is one of the most important things in planning. Like the saying goes prepare for the best but plan for the worst.
ReplyDeleteI think figuring out alternative strategies is an essential key in the planning process. There are multiple ways of going through a problem and solving it, and not having alternate really limits your opportunities to do well
ReplyDeleteActually, Our Plan B ( alternative strategies) did not work out because one girl had come up with the idea of making a parachute for the egg. ( are we rescuing the egg??!) Well...what a brillant idea wasn't it.
ReplyDeleteThere were some arguments in our team on how to make the protecter for the egg, but the ultimate choice we made was very satisfied. Personally, i think that it does not matter what the mean is , the end result is the one that is matter the most.
To comment on the individual's last statement made above me, while it may seem the end result matters more than the means to getting there, one would have to consider long-term wise. Accomplishing one objective successfully without seeing how it was done will probably hurt the business later on, especially if the results are what matters most, because the business may use the same technique of achieving the last successfully achieved goal to pursue success for the next goal, and it might not work the next time around. So, the means to getting to the end matter almost as much as the end results.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your question posted at the end, I didn't really notice that. Some of my team members strongly advocated their ideas as well. Perhaps your members' ideas could have worked to some extent and the ideas needed to just be thought out a bit more. Like the idea with the parachute, it does seem impossible, especially with straws and tape as building materials, but if thought about in a different manner but remaining with that seemingly impossible idea, maybe it could have worked??? Maybe you team members knew that but couldn't fully express why they thought of completing the task that way. Sometimes it's hard to get your ideas across to other people and to get them to understand what you're trying to say.
Yes. With my group we were all given given our thoughts and ideas and quite often some of these were violating the rules. This was time consuming and instead of coming up with and idea and an alternative, we only came up with one. In addition, during the execution of our plan, we shift our idea around and ended up with something totally different. Sadly, our egg did cracked at the end.
ReplyDeleteIt appears as if several people were frustrated with other members of their group, because of misunderstanding of what was required for this task. Perhaps this occurrence is a consequence of a breakdown of Step 1: Define your Goals and Objectives.
ReplyDeleteI would realize only in the end that only 50% of the egg could be covered.
From the sounds of it your group was on the right path. When it comes to group assignments like this it's always difficult to accomplish your objectives. As far as management and planning you guys performed well, unfortunately it didn't work out for you at the end.
ReplyDeleteMy group experienced all most similar challenges as your group. Not only did we not bypassed in step in the planning process but also the group members came up with these, in my point of view, unrealistic and unpractical design ideas and because sometimes one group can consists of many students from similar country or culture, may not be a good way to try to come up with a strategy or a design since it seems that they all agree about something even though it's unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteMy group experienced all most similar challenges as your group. Not only did we not bypassed in step in the planning process but also the group members came up with these, in my point of view, unrealistic and unpractical design ideas and because sometimes one group can consists of many students from similar country or culture, may not be a good way to try to come up with a strategy or a design since it seems that they all agree about something even though it's unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteour group didnt have the same problems with rouge members. our problems were in our lack of experience and the fact that we had not trials to test our theories. i think this was a problem for most of the groups because I dont think too many people have experience in egg dropping. sounds to me your group did a great job in planning with the execption of conflicting points of views. this may have occured because nobody in your team really came out as a leader. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteGood job on the planning aspect as your group perfectly followed the 5 steps of the planning process. You ended your post with the quote, "Many people were advocating their designs even after most of the group agreed the design would not work." I believe this is due to the fact that our class had no experience with the topic therefore how could we rule out a design that was not completely absurd. Since the majority of Baruch students are not physics majors and I doubt anyone has a hobby of protecting eggs from 10 foot free falls, then can we really dismiss an idea with no previous history? I believe that now we all have seen unsuccessful and successful projects, we would have a high success rate on a retry because we saw what worked and what did not and new designs would reflect these previous experiences. While the purpose of the project was to analyze our planning skills, I believe the main goal evolved to a competition on which group can successfully protect the fragile egg.
ReplyDeleteWe didnt really have any time wasting issues because of going over unrealistic designs or designs that violated the rules. More so, we all just hopped on board with the first/second idea out there and just built on it slightly. I suppose this is why our egg is broken. :(
ReplyDeleteyou make a really good point about the necessity of having alternative designs. a similar thing happened with my group-very little time was spent thinking of new ways/designs to protect the egg-and even when one was proposed it was quickly shot down because most of the group members where focusing on perfecting a design that was chosen at the start of the planning process. i think it was a critical error in my groups planning process.
ReplyDeleteIn our group we also came up with several alternatives for what could have been done but it was all based on one idea, like we were just trying to find several ways to improve the idea we had. So, our group kind of followed with what you were doing also in your group. But I do believe that even if people do say different ideas they might have a good point that can relate to an idea that you guys already have in a means to improve it even if it might not work out with their own specific idea. Either way, I believe you guys did a great job with the planning process. =)
ReplyDeletei also think a lot of time were wasted in the development of alternative strategies, where group members are trying to persuade others about their idea are much better than others. in those kind of situation, we must have someone act as a leader of the group and try to manage the arguments between members and save more time.
ReplyDeleteMy group didn't really have an alternative plan. Once we came up with the idea that all of the members agreed on, we went to allocate our sources to succeed this building. I think my group is very united because we had a leader emerged at the beginning of the activity. We followed through our plan, but the egg still broke at the end. I think for my group also, we need an alternative plan.
ReplyDeleteMy group really struggled when it came to the time constraint. By the end we just winged it and it ended up being a success.
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