5. Dynamique de groupe et projet final#

5.1. Project Analysis and Design#

For this assignment, we had to take inspiration of a fablab project presented in class and chose one that we cared about. One project that i thaught was interesting is the self powered water counter. The fact that this object is self powered is already interesting since we need to be carefull with our power usage these days. But I believe that making sure we don’t use too much water in everyday’s life is also something that is important to me. The fact that this object is taking care of both these important things made me chose it to analyze it and build a problem/solution tree around one of these problem. I went with the problem of Excessive water consumption.

From this problem I made the following problem tree :

And the following solution tree :

5.2. Group formation and brainstorming on project problems#

For this class, we had to bring up an object that linked people together. I chose to bring a table since I believe a table is something where we often reunite with people. It is an object that we basically use everyday and where we sit around with people that are important to us. Unfortunatly, this basic object isn’t available for many people around the world. In many poor country, people sometimes can’t even afford such a simple object but they find other ways to reunite and get links.

To find a group wasn’t an easy task. My object was a bit weird and really nobody else had the same kind of object. I finally managed to find a group where people wanted to share, recycle and bring people together. My special object found a litlle place among theirs and we managed to bring up words that were linked to our objects. The following picture shows the words we found :

After making this list of words, we had to make a list of problems that were possibly related to some futur projects. To do so we brainstormed for a few minutes and found 6 questions that are listed here :

We then had to see which problem we were most attracted to and to do so we put each of us a number between 1 and 5 to see which one we liked most. If we put a 1 it means we are not interested at all about the problem. A 5 means we really like it !

We ended up really linking the problem : Can we recycle everything ?

5.3. Group dynamics#

We had a lesson where we learned about group dynamics. During this lesson I took the following notes :

We then need to explain 3 tools for group dynamics we have learned and explain and how we could use them in the future.

One tool we used many times with my group is the finger game which helps making a decision about something. The principal is really simple, whenever we have to make a decision about chosing between different things, we list the different otpions then we go through them one by one and we each put forward 1 to 5 fingers. If we put 1 finger, it means we don’t like the option, if we put 5 it means we love it. Once we finished the lsit, we sum up all the numbers and check which option the group prefered. This helps to get rid of the options we don’t like quickly, we can after discuss a bit about the options that had the most points.

The second tool we are using is the different roles in a meeting. We already had a few meetings and the roles helped us to make it quick and efficient. The roles we are using are Scribble, Animateur and Gestion du temps. Thanks to these 3 important roles, our meetings are always written down so we don’t forget something later, they are quick without taking hours and structured so we can be efficient. The Scribble will take notes of what is said during the meeting. The Animateur will take care of looking at the Ordre du jour and taking care of the conversation. And finally the Gestion du temps makes sure we don’t linger too much on a topic so we don’t have to rush other topics at the end of the meeting.

The last tool we use is the Feedback. Whenever we are together, we like to finish with a feedback about how we feel of the project and the group dynamic. This is helping us understanding each other better and make sure to be carefull with some details that we sometimes miss out.

A bonus tool is that we made a list of Commandements where we listed every important things for the group dynamics. It is a list of do and don’t that we are all taking seriously for the futur of our group.