We started on the building of the small craft this week - for my group we are building the 4 metre Dory. Our first task was to loft/draw the temporary frames onto the MDF boards for the strongback from the dimension on the A4 paper given to us by Brett.
At the start of our meeting, our team lay some ground rules for our group work. One of which was to have a rotating leadership system where each one of us will assume the leadership role for one week. Without much fuss or discussion, the first week leadership seems to fall on me. This rotating leadership concept will allow each one of us to exercise and learn about our individual leadership capability in team management.
Our team seems to start off well without much storming activities which is more commonly present in most teams after the forming stage. Since we "volunteer" for this Dory project, the forming stage was quick and smooth. Without much personal agenda, the next storming and norming stages were also smooth as most of us had no issues to the ground rules we have set and agreed to before us. Our group thus went into the "performing" stage rather easily with everyone giving their energy and efforts to complete whatever tasks required.
My experiences over the last thee days working with the group on this Dory project is not representative of my experiences in my former working business environment. I attribute this smooth teamwork to a common interest/agenda and lack of any personal agenda that each one of us bring to the table. We also do not have the "politics" of a real business operation and environment.
The first day saw us busy with everyone transferring the dimensions of the 8 temporary frames onto the MDF boards with the work divided among all five of us.. It was quite an enjoyable operation though the MDF material is not that pleasant to work with as we could completed the task quite fast. The only obstacle we faced was to decide on which board the frame number 0.5 or 2 on the board (which have 4 frames as listed on the A4 sheet) to transfer over to the board which had only frame 3 (there are more spaces available on this last board). However the decision reached between John, Stephan and myself on this was not communicated to Yin and William. Later I found that they were struggling and thus had some time wasted on trying to "fit' all the frames onto the board that they were drawing on. It was only after they expressed their concern that they were told that one of the frames on their board was transfered to the last board. Lesson learned here was to ensure that everyone in the team is brought on to speed and is on the same page on the progress and decisions made by other members of the group. This was put into practice when Yin had completed his transom drawing and Stephan and myself completed the stem drawing. We briefed everyone in the group on how the transom and the stem drawings were arrived at.
In setting up the strongback on Monday, we had to add additional length to the strongback (which was orignally listed as 3.6 metre) as the Dory is now designed to be 4 metres. Our group worked well together to get the added length of the strongback made and level off and secure onto the floor to ensure that it will be firm and stable as well as properly leveled. Again this is evidence that our group can work well together.
On Wednesday, we were required to list out a timeline for our group work. Leaving James out of the group, we have 5 members who are regularly presented in all the sessions. On a cardboard, we listed out our initial plans with the dateline set as 29th June. Our milestones are
1) Group formation - on Monday (first time we started working together) - 16th May
2) Drawing and cutting of the temporary frames. - 17th May (On 18th May, John discovered that one of the frame - number 3 was 20 mm sort in height and we had to draw and cut out another frame of the correct dimension). Fortunately for us, John and William were assigned to check the frame dimensions after all the frames were cut.
3) Other milestone we have listed as installing and fastening the temporary frames onto the strongback - to be done by next week - 25th May (Brett's opinion on this time allocated to this task is that it is insufficient and so we have to go back to the "drawing board" and look at our timeline again - possibly on 23th May when we meet again in class). We have assigned John and William to do this but after a brief by Brett, it may look like this task will require "all of our hands". Not as easy a task as I thought.
4) Drawing and cutting of the plywood materials and construction of the interior fixtures such as seats etc....
5) Fastening plywood onto the frames.
6) We are targeting to turn the boat over by the 4th week on our plan. However it may look to be unrealistic after the brief by Brett on the fastening of the temporary frames on the strongback phase. This is an reality check which we need to do so regular to follow up on our timeline and plan.
This timeline is expected to change as we meet and work together for the next few weeks on this small craft construction and in considering new inputs from Brett or as events unfold. We will gain new insights into the boat construction which will reveal to us as we progress. Nevertheless this is the initial baseline we have come up with at this stage.
It was an enjoyable week working with each member of the team in this Dory project. One of the lesson learned here is to ensure that everyone is on board in term of the decision and the progress of the team tasks and work. More so when each one of us will be working on different parts and aspects of the boat construction. A team debrief is critical so that there will be "no lack" and more continuity in the event of any unforeseen circumstances in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment