IST 511--Day 4

Since tonight is the last night of "Boot Camp" at SU's Summer Institute, I thought I would reflect on something that has made a huge impact on my grad school experience this week--Teamwork. Several of our assignments over that last week have been group projects. For IST 605 we worked in groups to find an innovative technology solution to a real-life problem. I have blogged about this previously, noting how fortunate I was to have such a great group to work with. Well this week we were assigned new groups and a new project. Our group (#13) selected the topic "Dewey or Don't We: Does the Dewey Decimal system adequately serve the needs of public library patrons?" Once again, I was blessed to have landed in another terrific group. I was coupled with Mike again (thank goodness!) as well as Spencer, Sharon and Heidi. We are all very different from each other in many ways--age, experiences, geography, you name it. And we all brought different strengths and skill sets to the table. What I found made us so successful (we get graded tomorrow on our Poster Session) was compromise. I heard some real horror stories from classmates who were not making progress in their groups because individual egos were interfering with the overall goal of a quality project. The five of us did an excellent job of setting aside all petty rivalry or personal attachment to an idea or preference. We had healthy, respectful debate. And even though we may not have been in "lock-step" 100% of the time, we all had our eyes on the prize and made decisions for the good of the group. This attitude fostered a positive attitude, and great team chemistry--making the time spent working on this project (roughly 20 hours) enjoyable and even fun. Thank you teammates for all of your efforts!