Collaboration [group project]

As a group I feel we could have worked better. The lack of a leader damaged our productivity. I should have taken the lead to speed up our decision making but having been the leader on our three previous projects, with the same group members, I felt this may seem controlling and bossy. Our time could have been spent more effectively had somebody taken the lead and delegated tasks.

We all liked the Royal Mail brief so everybody was happy with the choice. I had already ear marked the ‘Train at Platform Four’ brief as the one I would most like to respond to individually. The presentation itself, with our work put aside, went terribly badly due to lack of practice. We focussed so much on the work that the presentation was left until the last day. Slides were cut out by people cutting in so it looked completely out of sync and some speakers became nervous and couldn’t complete their section. Because the judges focussed so much on the mistakes made in the presentation we didn’t get so much feedback on the actual work which was irritating as the nerves really couldn’t be helped. We really didn’t sell our ideas well, as we had planned however, so it didn't work so well.

I have never felt so on the spot or received such negative feedback, but the worst part of the experience was the unconstructive criticism. However, having heard everybody’s presentations and feedback, I was much less disappointed. It appeared that the judges were just quite negative people. It felt like all hope and happiness had been sucked from the room by the end of the presentations. The winning team of the Dragons Den received barely any praise when the results were announced. It was just a horrible atmosphere, but I think the experience has helped me learn to deal with such situations.

The feedback we received from Liz the following day was slightly more positive. It would have been nice if the judges had said what they had told Liz whilst we had been stood in front of everybody as they were complimentary of our work. This more positive feedback and constructive criticism gave me confidence that we could improve our response to the brief. This session was very useful.