It is important to reflect to identify your learnings for any project. I will be reflecting on my learning for Project CASA based on the five finger methods.
The thumb which is the things that went well for me would be it was the whole group dynamic and the belief in this project. I did not regret choosing these bunch of people to work with because similar to me, they have the same vision which is to make this is project an authentic one and sees the potential in the toolkit. Additionally they are the people who are really supportive of each other even during bad days and I really enjoyed my 3 months working with them.
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The middle finger which is things that were frustrating for me were that this COVID'19 forced us to do this project online and was not a physical project like what my seniors have done in the past. I was frustrated at the fact that I may not learn as much as my seniors but I was not the case. I realised that if I change my mindset on how I perceive this project as a whole and reflect on even the little things, there is learning and good takeaways from this project even if it was done at home.
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The index finger which is the things that we could blame or things that were beyond our control. There were many things that were out of our control but one significant one would be my own ability compared to my members' ability. There were times where I feel like I was not contributing much to the toolkit, either because I am not a creative person who can design the slides or the toolkit. This made me feel guilty and made me feel that I was pulling the team down. However, what I did not know was when Jerilyn told me that I have contributed in other ways especially during the interviews for community mapping and also being the devil's advocate for the whole project. All in all, I realised it is beyond my control to be good at everything and expect myself to be able to contribute in every corners of the whole project.
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The pinky which is the things that we neglected would be how we overlooked the importance of communicating expectations from stakeholders on our part. This made us produced a bad quality first draft to our community partner which made feel that we are not a performing team. However, we realised that we could have clarified with lecturers and stakeholders on what they expected from us and also asked other team for advise beforehand, so as to broaden our perspective.
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The last finger which is the ring finger represents the human qualities that were important to me through this project would be being supportive of one another. Looking out for one another which was part of our ground rules made this human quality visible throughout this project. Having supportive group members who kept looking out for each other really made us very close to each other, there were countless times where we were not satisfied with our own performance which made us demoralised. However, having teammates like Rishi, Suzi and Carissa made the team atmosphere better during those times and that was what I was really appreciative about. I am not very good at cheering the team up when I myself is not feeling well and having them really made it easier for me to take things easier and press on.
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And that is all. I hope you have learned a thing or two from my learning portfolio.