# Assignment 1B - Team analysis Belbin team roles

###### tags: `assignment`

## Student Numbers:
- Jort Vincenti: 5033179
- Teresa Gómez Mena: 5246989
- Jordi van Setten: 5275660
- Kristóf A. Sándor: 5292158
- Jordan Sassoon: 5214238

## 1. List all the team members' learning objectives (see Assignment 1A).
- Teresa: I want to learn new implementation techniques, participating in at least 20% of both the frontend and backend proccess, while also experiencing what it’s like working for a product that will be used by an enterprise in the future. Furthermore, I want to get used to working with a 1-week-long sprint, including daily stand ups and sprint retrospectives.
- Jort: Throughout the project, I’d like to learn how to connect a machine learning-based backend to a custom-built front end created by my peers, relying on the communication between them to ensure the quality of the final product.
- Jordan: In this course I want to improve my availability, prioritizing my teammates' need for help over my current task and asking how they are doing at the start of every work session.
- Kristóf: I want to improve my ability to work on a project in a team. For this I will make sure the team has agendas for meetings and will measure the amount of time spent in meetings, which overall should go down if I’m successful. I will also do code reviews at least 25% percent of the time.
- Jordi: In this course I want to improve my project development skills. I intend to do weekly code reviews, to ensure I understand everything that is being pushed and get a clear overview of the whole code base.

## 2. Which team roles are presented in your project group? Write down the top 3 of each team member in the figure below:

- Jort is an Implementer, a Shaper and a Coordinator.
- Teresa is an Implementer, a Shaper and a Coordinator.
- Jordan is a Shaper, a Plant and a Specialist.
- Jordi is an Implementer, a Shaper and a Specialist.
- Kristof is an Implementer, a Shaper and a Coordinator.

## 3. The combination of team roles influences the performance of your team. What could be, according to you, the possible strengths and possible weaknesses of your team?

#### Team strengths:
- Due to having similar attributes, we will coordinate and understand each other better. This will result in efficient meetings and capability to switch roles easily.
- The majority of our group has both the coordinator and the shaper role. The interaction between these two types enables us to not only distribute tasks effectively, but also to complete our own tasks efficiently.
- We own a good division between coordinators and specialists, which will help us divide tasks appropriately, while keeping an enthusiastic and professional environment.

#### Team weaknesses:

- As we mostly share the same attributes we suffer from lack of diversity, meaning some role types will not be comfortably covered and other role types will be overly present.
- All our team members are shapers, which indicates everyone's tendency to take the lead, possibly resulting in disagreements.
- Furthermore, as a shaper drawback, we might prioritize the speed of task completion over quality of the work done.
- One major flaw is that we were responsible for the formation of the group, so we have high expectations for the project’s completion, which might hasten the team’s demise if things go wrong.

## 4. What can you do to compensate for the weaknesses of the team?

Being conscious of our weaknesses and lack of diversity will help us tackle our collective undercomings. As team morale will be very important to help us achieve our goals, we will focus on team bonding. In addition to this, some of us will be exploring new roles outside of their comfort zone in order to fill all facets of the team environment. This will be done with patience and understanding, as adapting to a new role requires time.
Furthermore, communication is essential for a well-functioning team. As meetings may be a source of provocation due to our leading tendencies, we will always strive to reflect on the meetings, in order to discuss possible detriments to our group's well-being.
We will also take breaks every 1.5 hours for at least 10 minutes, in order to cool down the debate and let everyone reflect and relax.
Finally, in collaboration with the client, we will ensure that MOSCOW requirements are elaborated in a clear and simple manner, ensuring no details are overlooked. This will significantly increase the quality of work and ensure that mutual expectations are met.

## 5. Write down your team learning goal for this project. Make sure it is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound)

Our main goal is to improve on the process of project development in a professional environment; including learning how to conduct efficient meetings and work hours, creating good plannings that lead to a satisfactory final product and learning how to effectively communicate and deal with possible future problems with our clients.
Over the next eight weeks, we want to try out at least three different forms of managing communication in meetings (e.g. standing up for speaking, throwing a "talking ball" around, writing main topic on a whiteboard, etc.)
We will also create a team meeting retrospective which we will fill out after every meeting, which includes:
- Effectiveness (1-5): how well was the productive time spent?
Ranking specification: 1 represents low producitivity and 5 represents high productivity.
- Efficiency (1-5): how much time was wasted?
Ranking specification: 1 represents lot of wasted time and 5 represents no time wasted.
- Communication Management (1-5): how much interruption/conflict was present in the meeting?
Ranking specification: 1 represents poor communication management and 5 represents good and healthy communication.
- Suggestions for improvement: open ended discussion.

The code of conduct will include all of the aforementioned principles in order to ensure they are imposed.