Going back to the beginning of the semester, I was assigned to a group for a module named "Storyworks", a capstone project intended to provide us with an experience of building an interactive strategy for a real business. It felt a bit overwhelming initially, not being confident in my capabilities. However, over the course of the months ahead, I learned several concepts which would prepare me for the type of design thinking demanded by the project.
The project tested & enhanced many of the skills I've developed over the years such as design, strategy, collaboration, and project management. However, my greatest strength as a member of my team was leadership. I would take the initiative to ensure my team was on track, providing them with briefs of what needed to be done next and ensuring our deliverables were met on a timely basis. The main weakness I felt emerged out of the project was stress management. I would often worry that our work was not up to par with the other groups. Thoughts can be contagious and I was worried that it may affect the morale of the rest of my teammates. However, my team constantly reassured me that we were on track to do a good job and I felt less anxious as a result. Time management was another challenge our team faced collectively as we had several other crucial deadlines to be met for other subjects. It was really difficult to meet up and update each other on our progress. However, whenever we felt we were lagging behind, we would have a check-in call over the weekend. We did use our time wisely.
All of us contributed to the project equally. I was in a fortunate position with my group as we had a good balance of complementary skills. Fredy is a good designer, Anita is great at marketing so she understood how Vresh Foods performed compared to other players in the market, Ankita was great at content and therefore helped with a lot of the reporting and audits. My skills are multidisciplinary so I took charge of the project management, current state and helped Fredy with the wireframing and prototyping when he needed an extra hand.
My proudest contribution was wireframing and prototyping because I was testing my UI Design skills in the context to strategy. Before this course, I would have categorized myself as a glorified pixel pusher, but now I can confidently say that my designs will be perfectly aligned with the digital interactive strategy of a business. The most important skill in being part of a collaborative team is to understand that we all have different strengths as individuals. Before this course, I had a hard time delegating my work as I felt I was better off learning all functional roles by myself. However, over the our capstone project, I realized we all have different strengths and therefore roles to play in bringing the interactive strategy to fruition. It's equally important to know when to delegate work and understand how it all pieces together.Based on my experience in the project, my skills would be well-tested on interactive strategy and project management. I was really great at empathizing with business goals, and understanding how our strategy fit to best serve their requirements. I kept in constant contact with the client and made sure our group was up to date with their deadlines.
I was proactive, took responsibility and initiated communication with both, the client servicing and our internal team. I went above and beyond to fulfill my deliverables and met my deadlines on a timely basis. I delegated work and made sure our team was on track with the deliverables for each milestone. I kept a record of the tasks I was accountable for, along with what the other teammates promised. This way, I understood each of the tasks needed to complete the project and what roles each of the teammates had to play. Once I had a birds-eye view, I could check in on them and understand what resources I could help them out with to complete their part.I participated in all meetings both internally and with the client and weighed in with my thoughts on strategy. At times we weren't able to communicate with the client due to other school commitments, however, at such times, I kept Vresh informed.When contributing with my ideas, I felt it was a great way to reflect on others' thoughts because I realized that through collaboration and room for creativity, we could build and ideate strategies most effective for our business. Overall, this project tested & enhanced a variety of skills which has helped me become a more well-rounded UI/UX Designer & Strategist. I hope to push these skills to my fullest potential in the next semester when I am tasked with building my senior project.
