Movie Script for Exercise A1 – Kitchenware presentation in a long legacy company
Good afternoon, CEO, Chief Operating Officer, Marketing Director, I’m Terry, the product development manager. Today I am going to present you the newly designed microwave oven. The microwave oven is designed with simple button for control, furthermore, it is designed to operate with both solar energy and electricity. Sustainable energy is a very hot topic in modern society, this microwave oven is installed with a chargeable battery and solar energy panel. During the daytime, energy is stored into the battery and the energy will be released when the oven operates.
We target to sell this microwave often in some rural areas in China, where sunshine is more readily available than in the cities. The design of simple button is for convenient control for elderly people.
We believe this simple and solar energy-operating microwave oven is very suitable to use in rural areas in China.
Movie Script for Exercise A2 – Kitchenware presentation in an innovative company
Damon: Mary, you look so tired today.
Mary: Damon, yes, I am very tired after today's hard work in office.
Damon: Then you should go home to enjoy your dinner !
Mary: What? Enjoy my dinner? I have to rush to my house and cook for it. It is definitely not enjoyable.
Damon: Oh, sorry about that.
(Damon took his mobile phone out and press some keys)
Mary: Damon, what are you doing?
Damon: I am sending signal to my microwave oven for it to prepare my dinner.
Mary: How can you do that?
Damon: This newly designed microwave often is connected to the Internet by wifi.
Mary: That's interesting, tell me more about that.
Damon: Before going to work in the morning, just put the food package inside the oven. It will work like a refrigerator until the right time. When I’m about to leave office, simply give a signal to the oven by using the MyOven application on my mobile phone. The application will then detect my location, and the food will be cooked at the right time before I arrived.
Mary: This is design is very useful for busy person like me. I don’t need to worry about my dinner anymore.
Damon: This microwave often is very suitable for people who are too busy to cook. We believe this will be popular in Hong Kong.
Evaluation
Inhibitors to the Product Pitch
The atmosphere is too strict, no laughing allowed, no freedom. And we're afraid to communicate with each other. Each time, we have any suggestion, we need to hand up like pupils. Only getting permission from supervisor, then we have possibility to speak.
For
exercise A2, all team members are equal. Everyone has
the chance to raise or to voice out for our idea. At the beginning, there is no
supervisor/leader in our team that nobody directs our discussion. So, it is not
enough trust among us. Each of us often argues for our own opinion. Final
decision cannot be easily made.
At the beginning of the discussion, the atmosphere is not constructive
at all. Trust is important at the early stage. Our efficiency of work would be
very low and conflict would be easily happened.Facilitators to the Product Pitch
For exercise A1, due to our supervisor is reliable, credible, who have over 10 years professional working experience in the product development line, after we presented our ideas to him, he can quickly make final decision.For exercise A2, every member can share and opine freely at every time. So many imaginative ideas were raised from different aspects at this atmosphere. After we compromised other’s opinions, the outcome is generated. Brain storming is encouraged in this situation. It is easily to generate an innovative idea.
Analysis
"Under conditions of high trust, problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be degenerative and ineffective"(Boss,1978).For exercise A1, since supervisor's character is integrity, reliable and have professional capability, team members trust him. But from up to down, there's little trust, and due to lack of communication between members, there's little trust too. An integrity, reliable and capable supervisor is needed for each team, it can accelerate the decision-making, and avoid the freedom too far.
If internal discussion is encouraged in the team, it will help to increase team member trust, and enhance team productive relationship, finally facilitate product development process.
As there is no supervisor/leader in exercise A2, every member would like to raise opinion and ideas are freely expressed. We talk straightly without concerns or worries and it will increase our perceived integrity. During the process of negotiation, we increase credibility and remove doubts. Then, transparency is created among our team. We build trust through discussion and transparency speaking. Supportive and constructive ideas would be made in this kind of atmosphere. After all, we extend trust by enhancing integrity, credibility and competence. As we have high trust, we can achieve our team goals easily.
Trust=(credibility+reliablity+intimacy)/self-interest (David, Charles, Robert ,2000)
In exercise A1, because the supervisor with professional ability, and characteristics is integrity, so credibility is high; and according to past decision-making and other actions of supervisor, he is reliable in member's mind, can be dependable; but intimacy is not enough, it's lack of appropriate internal talking, contact; self-interest also means self-orientation, if members pay individual interest higher than team goals, it will decrease team trust. Like exercise A1, team goal is much important than personal interest, it will help to increase trust.
In the early stage of exercise A2, there is no supervisor or leader to make a decision. Integrity is low; and each team members are not trust each other. Each of them just wants to express their own opinion instead of achieving team goal. Obviously, individual goal is over the team goal in this moment and hence, team trust is low. Hopefully, team trust can be built if all members open their mind, admit weakness and mistakes, ask for help, accept others’ opinions even in their areas of responsibility. Trusting team will be built. If there is an outstanding team member acting as a supervisor or facilitator who is responsible for decision making. Team efficiency would be improved sharply.
In conclusion, supervisor is needed in team work, but we need credible, reliable supervisor. Since it's team work, common goal shall be more important than self-interest. And effective and freely communication shall be encouraged to increase member's intimacy. Then the whole trust can be increased constantly, and eventually help product production development. Creativity would be encouraged by freedom to communicate with everyone in the team.
References
Boss, W.R. (1978), “Trust and Managerial Problem Solving Revisited,” Group & Organization Management, Vol.3 No. 3, pp. 331-342
David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford, The Trusted Advisor New York: First touchstone,2000 P.69
Catmull, E. (2008, September 1). How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Retrieved March 3, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativity
(n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2015, from http://www.firstiraq.com/sites/default/files/products/5002-1_neu.jpg
http://www.jvpservicecentre.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/microwave-oven-repairs-sydney-australia-service-centre.jpg
http://www.solarpanel-manufacturer.com/picture/small-solar-panels/10-watt-solar-panel.jpg
http://scottdatabases.com/images/solutions/mobile-apps-3.jpg
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ReplyDeleteActually,another key factor of the low trust in exercise 1 is lacking of the common interest. In exercise 1, only the supervisor need to present, so it is not important for the other team members. Consequently, if we want to improve the trust of the team, we need to create a common interest for the team.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree that supervisor is needed. Obviously, in exercise 2, we used much more time compared to exercise 1,but the outcome is more innovative. Therefore, we need to trade-off the innovation and the efficiency. So which kinds of method we need it depends on the situation, if we are running out of time, we need to choose efficiency.
Dear Group 3 (Spirit),
ReplyDeleteIt’s teacher Frank here. I have a fun time reading this. I especially appreciate your team introduction and the concept behind your team name. For the group creativity exercises, you have come up with very nice products in both exercises without explaining or analyzing in enough detail about the group processes themselves as affected by different factors in two decision contexts to help us understand how you get to the positions or points you have arrived at.
Nice use of visuals and graphics. I like the clarity and coherence your group arrives at in writing with clear subsections that carry the story forward without distraction or going to the tangent. Nice job!
I recommend you work on having a nice introduction that situates your analysis and your readers well about the issues and thesis statement you intend to address and the concluding insight or culminating lesson learned about the group process of the innovation process that sums, typifies, extends your thesis statement in the introduction. This is a pretty nice first draft, though there is still room for improvement. Please adopt suggestions as you see fit. Please post a separate new post of this assignment, and keep the old post intact with comments from me and others. This way it shows your revision effort and gets you bonus points. Enjoy writing and learning!
Also, this is not meant to be a blog comment as a peer; rather, it's written as recommendations for improvement. So, please do not emulate my style in making blog comments on each other's blogs. Please see Trello cards on tips on making constructive comments. Thanks.
Best, Frank
ORIGINALITY AND AESTHETICS:
ReplyDeletePictures help us use fewer words to express more complex ideas. I suggest you to use more pictures to reduce your workload and get better result. The pictures chosen are effective in conveying your messages.
In addition to describing your activities that stem from your group, you can also examine how the decision context affects how the various group roles are manifested and how different roles in a group relate and interact with each other. How would you explain what you just experienced in your group processes in different contexts to someone else?
Your analysis is too descriptive. You need to engage in critical refletion about the dynamics of the group processes itself and the feelings and perceptions evoked at the individual and group level while engaging innovation two different decisions which constrain and channel both group and individual behaviors. In engage in critical reflection of group processes, one can identify what helped and what hindered the quality of learning and whether certain behaviors had a positive or negative effect. Team members can reflect on both the processes and products of group work.
INSIGHT AND PROVOCATION:
In the analysis part, first thing to do is to build your argument. You can clearly tell the readers that scenario 1 does not do better than scenario 2 in trust construction. And the two arguments you want to convey are quite similar in arguments, but you need to clearly explain them in the argument format: Groups innovation processes tend not to be as innovative due to the low trust work context in which people share and voice information due to these factors. You then list the factors, explain them, and prove them using your group processes analysis, with your collective group experience and individual experience in reaction to group activities as data points.
In fact, there are lots factors influencing teamwork, I suggest you to include additional concerns such as additional influences of creativity of individual team members in group contexts and the effects of work routines and hierarchy in group creativity that differ in the two decision contexts under which groups engage in group innovation processes.
The product pitches and the dialogues are nicely but are disjointed by the group innovation processes, as you did not relate the group processes to the quality or nature of the group outcomes in your analysis. You can do better linking and bridging of gaps in logic and connections better.
ReplyDeleteSUPPORT AND EVIDENCE:
Generalizations about group and creativity processes are made good use in your content often without proof using group processes as evidence or citing of literature or concepts in the readings or lectures.
There are plenty of generalizations mentioned in supporting and extending the arguments. What you need is to add more concepts and theoretical bases to fill the gaps in logics and reasoning as well show that your assumptions have veracity based on past research and findings. For instance, you mentioned low trust in scenario1, you can use the concept about little communication leads to low trust. With using such concept, the logical link is completed.
You can additionally draw come comparisons and connections between what your are learning in this class during lectures or during the readings to your prior knowledge and experience; your prior assumptions and preconceptions; what you know from other courses or disciplines. Some nice but disjointed insights are made throughout the writing, but they are not building on each other to make more sophisticated arguments that can lead to a culminating final concluding point that impacts and influences your reader’s perception about certain issues, or position on moral debates, or even future decision going forward.
MASTERY AND UNDERSTANDING:
In order to fill the logical gaps between argument and information, we need concepts, past findings and knowledge based on prior literature. In your evaluation part, you made clear comparison and argument. You can improve by integrating more concepts to explain the group processes that lead to different group outcomes and analyzing how features of decision contexts impact the group innovation processes.
It is important here to unpack how and why of the choices the group make the decision impact of these choices under decision contexts rather than just describe your group has solved a problem; reached a conclusion; found an answer; reached a point of understanding.
What did you discover about the advantages and disadvantages of working as part of a group during the two different contexts of group innovation, especially as it relate to performance outcomes such as innovation quality and product or group effectiveness and creativity?
The quote you cite is very important: "Under conditions of high trust, problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be degenerative and ineffective"(Boss,1978). However, your analysis is misplacing focus and misses the most important point of reflective analysis of group processes: understanding proving how and why how the high trust vs. low trust decision contexts influence problem solving processes in groups as observed and informed by the insights observed in your group innovation processes, predicted by the nature and evolvement of group dynamics and interactions as affected by decision contexts.
CLARITY AND COHERENCE:
ReplyDeleteYou can combine evaluation and analysis part together. In this way, you do not need to repeat the fact mentioned in evaluation and readers do not get confused. Combining the separate evaluation and analysis sections can be more coherent. Furthermore, in the analysis part, the two arguments are quite similar; you can compare and contrast a little more to extend your arguments. No sense in repeating very similar if not redundant message in precious pages.
Reflective writing is an activity that can includes description (what, when, who) and analysis (how, why, what if). The descriptive part (outlining what something is or how something was done) should be brief and to the point that quickly and immediately provide the contexts for your audience by situating them frameworks or frames of reference to understand your explanation and analysis that follows.
Reflective writing is often explanatory (explaining why or how it is like that) and expressive (I think, I feel, I believe). It is an explorative tool cam result in more questions than answers. However, the focus of this particular assignment should be to explain and understand how the group processes and interactive insights that surface during group experiences are affected by different decisions contexts, and how and why these different group dynamics, roles subsequently affect individual and group outcomes in doing innovation. How and why is the nature of innovation activities different, and are affected by decision contexts and group dynamics and composition differentially?
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ReplyDeleteI like your concise style in your blog. I don't think we need to put too many words in the blog. I like the "Analysis" part in the blog. This part tells the analyzing process in your designing process. However, I still think that You SHOULD contain more information about the product you designed because there are lots of kitchenwares in the market. I think new idea and creativity is vital.Although the communication is important, we cannot neglect the product itself. What's more, I like the analysis of the factors in your communication, which includes the serious environment, encouragement, creativity, reliability,etc.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTwo description shows very different processes of innovation. For the first one, it is more formal and sounds boring. For the second scenario, the great idea comes from a normal conversation between two employees. This design is remarkable. It shows the idea "innovation is a culture". However, one thing I'd like to mention is that if there can be more other medias would be preferable
ReplyDelete1, Different from many other teams, SPIRIT has a very specific scenario description. Even including a lively dialogue, not only appeal to me to read on, but done a very good bedding for the latter analysis part.
ReplyDelete2, Also very precious that your analysis and characteristics of the product and the team collaboration process, there is a very tight binding. I guess you are inspired by professor's posted recommended reading on a film making team case.
3, Your assumptions about leadership "For exercise A1, since supervisor's character is integrity, reliable and have professional capability, team members trust him." Reminds me of an article on Leadership Style Matrix. It provides
4 determined quadrants a leader may fall into, then one can choose from the two leadership styles that are most appropriate for his situation.
I also recommend a very interesting gadget: The Leadership Motivation Assessment http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_01.htm
After a few multiple choice questions, it will tell you How Motivated Are You To Lead? I hope you will be interested in!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThis is 53935415 here to study from you:
1. important but easy to be neglected: 1 mins presentation. It seems that almost a few people who did this part, the 1 min presentation in logical and precise words. That's good cause only when you really simulate and record that you can find out so many question that need to be adjusted.
2.The trust part, which I learned from you most, the equation of Trust=(credibility+reliablity+intimacy)/self-interest is a good quote which is easy to understand as I am an engineer, actually sometime to quantize the abstract feature into a more specific numerical equation can make people to observe the fact easily.
3.another thing that you and me need to be learned is that try to use picture and comparison chart to capture the sight of the reader, that's what I learned from other group, here to share with you!
Thanks for your lesson
Different from many other groups, I like the fact that you have actually come up with the exact script to be presented for the two exercises, which helped readers understand the major difference in the conclusion of your discussions. From Exercise A1, you have shown the one-way mode of communication for which the supervisor was the only person speaking to the management, while in Exercise A2, you have introduced the pitch in an interactive approach. The two ways of communication to the management has syndicated the authority of team members of the different groups, with team A1 having the power centralised in the supervisor's hands and team A2 shared among members.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I feel that the conclusion of needing a credible supervisor in team work in order to lead to effective team work is debatable. In my opinion, a team would function well when a leader and at least one moderator exist in the team. The leader would take the initiative to invite ideas, and the moderator(s) would monitor the discussion flow to make sure everyone is on the right track. With this assumption, one does not have to be a supervisor to take the leader role. Therefore, an effective team can still exist even with the flat structure as team A2.
The best part of this blog would be the introduction of the theory: Trust=(credibility+reliability+intimacy)/self-interest (David, Charles, Robert ,2000). This is something new to me and I find it very practical in explaining trust in both exercises. Perhaps it would be even better if more data were draw upon the different elements in the equation so that it is crystal clear for readers to understand the actual difference of the discussion outcomes of team A1 and team A2.
Overall, I think this is a well structured blog. It was enjoyable reading your work. Nice job!