Decision Making

Seeing as how half the class did not do as well as expected on this first exam we were given an oppurtunity to boost our grade up. Once the professor gave us the floor to come up with some sort of extra credit the class immediately began throwing out ideas. I took the role of avoidance not because I didnt think we weren't going to get aything but because I knew that many were in the same situation as me as far as the grade went and a solution that would benefit us all would eventually be reached. However, I was discussing what the class was deciding with the classmates I had around me. I did notice the methods being used in the class discussion one of them being the compromise method. Here two students immediately stood up and sort of took control of the class to try to get out ideas out of all the shouting and come up with concrete proposals. They were hearing people out and trying to accomadate each and every idea. Although the whole process was a little chaotic we did end up getting a pretty good extra credit package. But now knowing how everything went I think if we had to do this a second time a collabrating process would probably work the best because breaking up a fairly large group into smaller ones would facilitate getting out ideas better and it would be more orderly.

Applying the Planning Process

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives
I believe my group fully understood the objectives of the egg planning activity. The professor listed the specific steps he wanted us to take and we knew exactly what we had to do to be able to test our invention at the end of the activity.

Step 2: Determine current status compared to objectives
I think we were pretty good in keeping on track with the steps we had to follow. The first step the professor listed was to discuss in a group exactly what and how we were going to go about building a contraption for the egg.

Step 3: Develop premises and several alternative strategies
Here we didn't really come up with several alternatives. We baiscally thought up of one design and just tweaked it. We probably would've done a much better job if we would have come up with several designs but we were so focused on baiscally getting it done within the time constraint that was given to us.

Step 4: Analyze alternatives and make a tactical plan
As stated in step 3 my group just had one design and each one of us incorprated ideas to try and make it work. We didn't really allocate roles, once we were given the supplies each of us just took up something to do whether it was building, or putting the tape on or holding the egg.

Step 5: Implement the plan and evaluate results
Although we only came up with one idea we actually did stick to it and was able to build the contraption as we had planned plus add some more ideas and in the time that was given. But even though we built it, it didn't serve its purpose which was to protect the egg from breaking when we threw it.

My group was able to almost follow through the whole planning process. Thinking back now I think if we would've come up with more ideas and if we would've given each memeber a specific job then our objuective of not breaking the egg would have been achieved. Regardless, I really enjoyed this activity.