Design Thinking for the Built Environment

This article discusses the concept of design thinking in the built environment and its impact on teamwork and project completion. It explores individual and group performance, challenges faced, and ways to improve. The importance of effective communication and collaboration in achieving common goals is highlighted.

Running head: DESIGN THINKING FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
DESIGN THINKING FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1DESIGN THINKING FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Introduction
Good and effective teamwork always play an important role in the process of
implementation and fulfilment of common goals in better and quicker ways in a team project
(Thorlindsson & Halldorsson, 2019). Every team members in a team works has a particular
role to play and has to take responsibilities which after combining together could make the
functioning of the team well and this further helps in achieving a common goal. In this paper
I shall elaborate on presenting a reflective piece of work. Here, I would reflect on my group
work activities, highlighting my individual performance, my group’s performance and the
ways we could improve further if we were given the task to do again.
Discussion
Individual performance
It is to note that there were three members in my group. Member A was given the task
of documenting the process, Member B was given the task of researching and Member C, I
was the completer finisher. I was responsible for quality controller and search for the errors
and omissions and modifying and polishing them. Also, it was my duty to ensure that the task
was delivered on time. My role was very important to the teamwork as I was the one to
guarantee that the finished task is of high quality and is meeting all the assessment
requirements. Also, I did not allowed any kind of delay in the completion of the task and took
punctuality very seriously. I always kept an eye on the work process of my team members
and assisted them wherever they need help and fell behind. Member B was responsible of
researching about the topics and bringing in suitable data and information for our project. He
was also important to the teamwork as without the relevant data and information the project
would have been unsuccessful. He also did his work effectively and wherever he found
difficulty in gathering the data, I assisted him. We made use of publicly available data and

2DESIGN THINKING FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
information for my team project. Member A was responsible of documenting everything. I
have given the role to him as he has a problem of mutism and he cannot speak. That is why
we thought that it would be good to give him this role as in this role, he just had to document
the things brought by Member B. However, although we worked well individually, we faced
few issues for one of our member being mute. We had to arrange interpreters and book them
in advance as we could not held effective meetings and communicate with one another
without interpreters.
Group performance
It is to state that we were given the task of completing an assessment on the case
study of Merged School Business and preparing an informative presentation on the same. As
three of us were class mates, we were well aware of each other and this is why
communication was not any sort of barrier in our project. I was the leader of the team and we
effectively discussed about our team project and what and how it should be done. Each one of
us were open to present our ideas and opinions on the team project. However, the very first
challenge that we faced was after the formation of our group. We find it difficult to decide on
ways to organise our work on completing the task within the deadline. Firstly, we decided to
divide the whole task into small pieces and assign them to each member. Then, we developed
a time line as it was the best way for completing the task on time. This helped us to know
who will do what and by when. We made a Gantt chart for the same. It was in the following
way:
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Analysing the
background of
the case and
reading.
Identifying the
possible issues
present in the

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case
Researching
about the three
significant
issues
Discussing
about the
solutions and
making the
presentation
Rechecking the
whole
presentation and
submitting.
As per the Meredit’s theory of team role, different individuals act differently and play
different team roles for varied degrees, grouped into nine kinds (Tinungki, 2015) By means
of identifying the characteristics of different roles, we can ensure to exploit the strengths of
the individual team members and managing their weaknesses for avoiding the same. One of
the supporters of Belbin theory have opined that higher control is achieved through the
potential of forecasting the attitudes of the team (Ayinde & Oke, 2017). I was very surprised
at how exact it was for me although I would not agree entirely. Though we did not make use
of the SPI of Belbin (Self-Perception Inventory) for assessing the characteristics our team
before starting the project, it was really interesting to undertake. It showed that we had
mixture of characteristics in our team that have accounted to collaborative cooperation.
There were some problems that we faced during the process apart from the muteness
of member A, a significant gap. When we were figuring out the whole process and when we
were trying to decide on the role of everyone in the team, the team work got quite delayed as
member B was not ready to take the responsibility of completer finisher. Then I told him to
take the responsibility of researching as we do not have any other option. To member A, we
cannot give the task of researching or of completer finisher as he is unable to speak and in
these roles, effective communication is very important. So, the role of documentation cannot

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be transferred to him. Eventually, we understood the problem and was ready to work as
researcher. Thereafter, the other issue that we faced was of getting stuck in between. After we
were given the background of the case and after finding out the issues in the case, we got
stuck at finding out the possible strategic solutions. It was acting as an obstacle for us to
move forward. The overall group performance was good and we were able to make the final
submission on time.
How to improve
To ensure that I do not face the same issue in the future if I was doing this task again,
I think I need to bring in some changes. For sticking with the main theme of the project and
discussion, I would try to summarise the whole discussion before the digression. Also, I
would prevent the things from taking place that will make the progress got delayed. For
finding out the best possible solution, I would work collaboratively and would not the whole
task of researching on any one member.
Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis, it is to conclude that my group was consisted of three
people including me, and two other boys. We divided the work among ourselves equally and
did not face any issues as we all did our part collaboratively and effectively. However, one of
my team members was unable to speak as he was mute by birth. This is why we had to
arrange interpreters to build the communication gap and book them in advance as we could
not held effective meetings and communicate with one another without interpreters.
However, we were successful at the group project and from this experience, I strongly feel
that there is a great importance of team work and it brings a great amazement when there is
quality task completion and the required goal achievement. It has helped me in knowing how
to coordinate with other as being an individual for putting the interest of the team my priority.

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References:
Ayinde, O. N., & Oke, A. E. (2017). Preferred Team Roles of Construction Team Members
in Selected Higher Institution Projects. International Journal of Built Environment
and Sustainability, 4(2).
Thorlindsson, T., & Halldorsson, V. (2019). The cultural production of a successful sport
tradition: A case study of Icelandic team handball. In The Interaction Order (pp. 237-
266). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Tinungki, G. M. (2015). The Role of Cooperative Learning Type Team Assisted
Individualization to Improve the Students' Mathematics Communication Ability in the
Subject of Probability Theory. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(32), 27-31.