I enjoyed the group experience in class, but it was very different from what I expected. While the readings exposed me to the ideas, actually putting into practice the strategy was very foreign to me. I had never done a group brainstorm, so I didn’t know what to expect at all. Even though I hadn’t participated in a similar process before, it was still an effort to switch the way I thought for it. Coming up with the HMW questions was hard at first and I wasn’t sure what I should be asking. It was intimidating to put something on the board because I was afraid I was doing it wrong but after a slow start I got more comfortable with it and the group got as a whole into the ‘right’ mindset and we were able to come up with quite a few a good amount of HMW. We didn’t do the process perfectly and throughout the process, we realized what we could have done better from the start.
One of them being the wording of our post-it notes, the wording of our questions ended up being more important than I thought it would be originally. We had to negotiate for a couple of the post-it notes our actual meaning and be intentional with our choices and whom we were addressing. As a group, we worked well, and we compromised successfully. I really enjoyed the opportunity of getting into a more creative/innovative facet of group work. It showed me our strengths as a group and that we can adapt well to different situations as we all do our best to listen to each other and build off of one another.
One choice we made that I was super happy with was that we choose to use the whiteboard and post-it notes. It was really helpful to have all of our ideas right in front of us and I am really glad we choose to use the board instead of trying to do it online. The tangible manifestation of our ideas was great to have and look at. Editing felt more like a collaborative process because we talked about things before moving them versus leaving a comment on something or straight up editing without consulting.
One challenge I had during the process – other than getting in the mindset itself – was, when suggesting, I don’t think I kept in mind our persona, Carson, as much as I could have. When forming my questions, I was thinking in a general consumer mindset, so I need to be more intentional about my audience in the future. The fact that I wasn’t focused in on our persona meant some of my questions were a bit broad, but we were able to group ideas and create more concise ideas from what we had.
Overall a positive experience with the process. I enjoyed the real-time brainstorming process and that we all were able to get our ideas seen and voted on. Can’t wait how to further implement this process, or similar ones, as we progress with the project.