This week was the beginning of the Co-Creative Design & Development Practice module. For this module we will be required to work in multidisciplinary team consisting of five people to design and develop an interactive prototype.
The main focus of this week would be around forming a team and had been discussed with two of my peers a prior to starting the module. We shared similar goals and design ideologies in that we preferred 2D games and believed we had complimentary skills.
With three team members found, two other members would be needed and luckily were found via the arranged 'mixer sessions'. Although all of the team members came from the Game Design cohorts, it felt like a great mix of enthusiasm, creativity and technical skills.
A discord group was then sorted, so we could begin communicating and planning more readily and we were on our way! However, we needed a team name, so following a discussion names were suggested and then shortlisted and then a poll was created and we would henceforth be known as the: The Wild Branch.
There's no 'I' in team..
Week 1's challenge activity was to take a personality test and then reflect on the results. We were encouraged to try out some of the test on Truity and after some browsing I chose to take the Big 5.
The Big 5 measures on five major dimensions of personality: Openness, Conscientious, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
Interestingly I scored highest and above average in Openness and the next highest was Agreeableness:
Openness describes a person's tendency to think in abstract, complex ways. High scores tend to be creative, adventurous and intellectual. They enjoy playing with ideas and discovering novel experiences. Low scorers tend to be practical, conventional, and focused on the concrete. They tend to avoid the unknown and follow traditional ways.
Whilst I can agree with this assessment to an extent - in that I'm more on the creative side, I find it interesting that low scorers are supposed to follow traditional ways. Reflecting on how I would usually go about completing tasks (especially within a deadline) I am more likely to use something that's tried and tested and familiar than try unknown or untested methods.
Agreeableness describes a person’s tendency to put others’ needs ahead of their own, and to cooperate rather than compete with others. People who are high in Agreeableness experience a great deal of empathy and tend to get pleasure out of serving and taking care of others. They are usually trusting and forgiving.
I can agree this statement and my score for this, as I'm more likely to go along with things that keep the team happy and things moving along for the greater good (within reason).
I scored lowest in Extraversion
Extraversion describes a person's inclination to seek stimulation from the outside world, especially in the form of attention from other people. Extraverts engage actively with others to earn friendship, admiration, power, status, excitement and romance. Introverts on the other hand conserve their energy, and do not work as hard to earn these social rewards.
If someone would have asked me before taking the test, what do you think you'll score lowest in? I would have answered extraversion, as I've always had a reserved personality and finding it awkward being front and centre of things.
Reflecting on these scores and presuming they're correct (did I answer the questions as honestly as possible?), it seems like I could fit into a team and work harmoniously with others.
Whilst I found this to be an interesting exercise and could have probably written something similar beforehand, I decided to take an Enneagram test to view things from a different perspective.
The Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. The Enneagram describes nine personality types and maps each of these types on a nine-pointed diagram which helps to illustrate how the types relate to one another.
I turned out to be personality type 9: The Peacemaker, which looks to shares some commonalities my Big 5 test results - specifically cooperation and agreeableness being traits that can be seen in both tests.
These results would have been interesting to compare earlier on in the team formation to adjust potential roles and responsibilities and potentially match these to Belbin's 9 Team Roles (1991). However, due to the necessity to get things moving we used a skills audit method to assign tasks and roles that best matched our skills and experience - something that Kichuk and Wiesner (1997) believes to be more appropriate.
References:
KICHUK, Susan L. and Willi H. WIESNER. 1997. 'The big five personality factors and team performance: implications for selecting successful product design teams'. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 14(3), 195-221.
PARKER, A. 2019. Working in Teams. https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/913/pages/week-1-an-introduction-to-teams?module_item_id=49985 [Accessed 07/06/2021].
Truity. 2021. Free Personality Tests and Career Assessments – Truity. [online] Available at: https://www.truity.com (Links to an external site.) [Accessed 07/06/ 2021].
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