Team Members example essay topic

Several lessons have been learned through the beginning of the senior design project. We have learned team building lessons, including team interaction, organization and team roles, through many trial and error situations. Issues of project management also have taught me very important lessons that will help me in the real world when I must deal with administrative authority. As a team, we have never set specific roles for each team member, but rather naturally feel into our own roles. I, personally, have become a sort of optimist or gate keeper. I try to make sure everyone feels their opinion is heard and that everyone gets equal say in the design.

I also watch to make sure that no one feels their toes are being stepped on by watching people's mannerisms during the meetings. I also have become somewhat of a meeting coordinator, in the sense that I contact all team members to find a time and location to meet that fits everyone's schedule. Our method of each team member taking the role that suits their personality best has come naturally, but I think there would also be some benefit in changing the roles so that each member can prepare for real world situations. When in the working world, I may be asked to lead a team, which is a role that is very unnaturally and unlike my personality, but the experience of learning to lead in a group like this would greatly benefit me when I have to lead in the future. This project involves several aspects that really interest me. I plan on going into radiology, so learning about magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from an engineering perspective is very interesting.

I also enjoy applying what we have learned about tissue mechanics from Dr. Criscione and Dr. Humphrey into building an actual device. However, I do not like the added challenges of building such device inside a MRI. The space we have to put the device and the requirements of non-magnetic material have made the design process more intense that I expected. I have also learned that I need a specific project completely outlined by a project manager to be most effective. Dr. Wright is an excellent project manager, but he has given a lot of the design requirement and specification decisions to our team. This leaves the limits of our design open-ended; therefore any design in my mind still seems incomplete because we could always add another aspect to the tissue conditioning.

If Dr. Wright had given us distinct requirements we would know exactly what we are working towards and I personally would feel like our design was complete when we met those requirements. I have also learned that working with a team is a very pro-active act. Every teammate must do there part and then also make sure that every other member is completing the other parts. I also have learned that a team is stronger when all members work together at one sitting, rather than splitting up the requirements and doing them as separate members. All of these lessons can be applied when ever I work in a group again and some of the lessons have already been applied in changing the way I work with this team I am in now.

Next time, I will strive to be more organized with set weekly meeting times and set meeting agendas prepared before each meeting. I will also personally try and take on a role outside what my personality naturally pushes me toward. In conclusion, this design process has taught me a lot about the aspects of design, but more importantly it has taught me about the different aspects of teamwork and team building. Such lessons are invaluable to me when I graduate and work.