Very novel idea, get a whole class of 80 people to decide on one thing. Pure genius. At first I was accommodating, I received a high grade on the test and decided that it should be up to other people to decide things. Logically I would be fine regardless of what the class decided. I did well on a test and everybody wanted to make the next test easier, so if the next test became easier I would do well again.
Then I started to avoid the situation. I was a bit angry. The only way the next test would get easier is if we all agreed on something together, but things weren’t moving towards an agreement. Actually as time went on peoples ideas got more imaginative, thus more unique, which bred even more disagreement. I folded my arms and decided I would sit it out in the eye of the storm. Who cares, what we decided, either way Ill do fine.
By the end I was prodded into action. It seemed to me that a few people were missing the point, asking for too little, so I spoke a few times. But I still tried to avoid the situation. Im very much against true or false questions, but decided not to speak out, because it would just make things more difficult.
Im at work right now, in a datacenter, sitting on the floor surrounding by Dell Poweredge 1950 servers. I think its ironic that im doing well in management class, but when it comes to management in every day things, like work, friends, school, im failing pretty badly.
Concerning doing things differently, I would probably try to get everyone on the same page first. Explain how much we could ask for, get everyone to think in terms of a lot, not a little. Next I would have divided the discussion into 3 parts. First how the next test will look, next how the tests will count, and lastly extra credit. It seems that everyone was talking about everything, one person suggesting extra credit, the other true or false questions. And lastly I would ask who is against something to raise their hands, its easier to spot people that way.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Fallen Comrade
The egg and I became friends, but i knew our friendship was going to be short lived.
To some extent our group went through all the steps.
We didn’t define the goal, but we all understood it. The egg has to survive the fall. We also spent some time talking about what resources we had and how to best use them. A plan was drawn up and edited several times. We also selected the shortest person to do the drop.
There weren’t too many factors so from the start developing alternative strategies was simple enough, someone said why something wouldn’t work and the plan would be edited. Once we settled on the specific design of the contraption we decided who was going to be responsible for what once the supplies were given out, but it didn’t go further than that.
Once we already had the supplies though, there was a clear division of labor, even though it wasn’t pre-planned, i have to say it was carried out professionally. One person was writing up the procedure, two were creating the cushions out of straws, one was attaching them to the egg, i was tearing up tape to appropriate chunks. Once someone was done with their task, they would help the person next to them, and overall it was very smooth.
The plan was implement and evaluated (the egg was dropped and it didnt survive).
Something about this project just didn’t hit the spot for me. It just didn’t feel that involving, it was too simplistic. I mean with the amount of time we had, one class period it was perfect, but too many factors worked against it. The fact that it was either pass or fail, egg survives or doesn’t, it was hard to judge how well the planning worked, if there were multiple objectives you would see where the plan failed, were it didn’t. A single objective just didn’t reveal much about the plan. Plus there really wasn’t enough time to sit down and do a proper plan, not that it mattered though, an egg drop is rather simplistic and really could have been done with no planning. As I pointed out, even though we didn’t plan the division of labor, it still worked out as the process went on. Again it carried the point across but from a lot of my classes I get the feeling that everything is done just to say it was done. Like we are doing a presentation in finance… why? Just to say that we had somekind of presentation done and it potentially worked on our public speaking? That’s so silly. Half assed.
Not to say that our management class is half assed, no no, management is just too intensive and too broad to be studied like this, I feel like we fly past things so quick I don’t get all the flavor. Hmm, after a full day of work followed by a full day of classes I just realized I am tired and I am rambling on. Im getting new tires tomorrow, hope they fit. Gonna be sick, cant wait to see how much grip they will give me on the track!
To some extent our group went through all the steps.
We didn’t define the goal, but we all understood it. The egg has to survive the fall. We also spent some time talking about what resources we had and how to best use them. A plan was drawn up and edited several times. We also selected the shortest person to do the drop.
There weren’t too many factors so from the start developing alternative strategies was simple enough, someone said why something wouldn’t work and the plan would be edited. Once we settled on the specific design of the contraption we decided who was going to be responsible for what once the supplies were given out, but it didn’t go further than that.
Once we already had the supplies though, there was a clear division of labor, even though it wasn’t pre-planned, i have to say it was carried out professionally. One person was writing up the procedure, two were creating the cushions out of straws, one was attaching them to the egg, i was tearing up tape to appropriate chunks. Once someone was done with their task, they would help the person next to them, and overall it was very smooth.
The plan was implement and evaluated (the egg was dropped and it didnt survive).
Something about this project just didn’t hit the spot for me. It just didn’t feel that involving, it was too simplistic. I mean with the amount of time we had, one class period it was perfect, but too many factors worked against it. The fact that it was either pass or fail, egg survives or doesn’t, it was hard to judge how well the planning worked, if there were multiple objectives you would see where the plan failed, were it didn’t. A single objective just didn’t reveal much about the plan. Plus there really wasn’t enough time to sit down and do a proper plan, not that it mattered though, an egg drop is rather simplistic and really could have been done with no planning. As I pointed out, even though we didn’t plan the division of labor, it still worked out as the process went on. Again it carried the point across but from a lot of my classes I get the feeling that everything is done just to say it was done. Like we are doing a presentation in finance… why? Just to say that we had somekind of presentation done and it potentially worked on our public speaking? That’s so silly. Half assed.
Not to say that our management class is half assed, no no, management is just too intensive and too broad to be studied like this, I feel like we fly past things so quick I don’t get all the flavor. Hmm, after a full day of work followed by a full day of classes I just realized I am tired and I am rambling on. Im getting new tires tomorrow, hope they fit. Gonna be sick, cant wait to see how much grip they will give me on the track!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)