Time Frame
I took on the role of team lead for Release 1 and Release 2. After Release 2 Dennis asked if he can take on the role of Team Lead. The project idea was Dennis's but he wasn't confident to be team lead and the centre of the team, however over the Releases he gained more confidence and gained enough to take over the role.
Relevance
The role of a team leader is a vital one within any team, regardless of whether it is a large corporate setting or a student project. The team leader sets the tone for the team and helps to bring their vision to fruition by effectively managing time, resources, and requirements. They keep the team motivated and assign tasks to individuals with the appropriate expertise to complete them efficiently, while also monitoring the overall performance of the team. Additionally, team leaders help to resolve conflicts and act as a mediator in decision-making when the team is unable to reach a consensus. They also serve as the main point of contact for stakeholders, both internally and externally, for the project.
Technical Challenges
Keeping everyone on the same page: During my 3rd year project in Universal Design there would be multiple moments of people being confused what as a team we have to be doing and what are the tasks that each individual has to carry out or is doing at the moment, therefore I decided it would be a good idea to invest time into writing out documents of our plans this is why I gave myself the role of Documentation Manager. Creating the documents helped us have our ideas or plans written down so that no one would have to repeat themselves and it would be easy to point people in the right direction.
Individuality: A popular issue that arises in teams is there can be members where they can be confused on where to start or too scared to start on something without direction. Therefore it is critical to have meetings where each person is made aware of their tasks and updates their progress with the rest of the team. While it would be nice to leave each member to their tasks with minimal meetings I believe it is not possible because if it was we would see this adopted in the the real world.
Managing a remote development team: With the current scenario, many members are too comfortable working remotely, this creates some challenges like communication and coordination among the team members and ensuring that the team is productive and on track.
Managing and resolving conflicts among team members: I anticipate with the different personalities and work styles that our team has, it can be challenging to manage and resolve conflicts among team members to maintain a positive and productive work environment.
Leadership Philosophy
Democratic leadership is a leadership style in which group members actively participate in the decision-making process. This type of leadership values the input and ideas of team members and encourages open communication and collaboration. It is often considered more effective in promoting creativity, motivation, and job satisfaction among team members.
Autocratic leadership, on the other hand, is a leadership style in which the leader makes decisions alone and without input from group members. This type of leadership is often associated with a "command and control" approach, in which the leader gives orders and expects them to be followed without question. It is often considered less effective in promoting motivation and job satisfaction among team members, but can be more efficient in certain situations where time is limited or decisions must be made quickly.
Throughout the project I have used to democratic approach and on a rare occasion I have had to take an autocratic approach. Personally I lean towards a democratic style as I am well aware that I don't have the full knowledge or experience of working in all the roles that are assigned to each member and therefore I will rely on their expertise to help make decisions. A dream situation would be to take the Laissez-faire approach where Laissez-faire leadership gives equal power to the team and the leader. In fact, the leader will often give little guidance to their team and will instead allow them to work how and when the team feels they need to. Instead, the leader focuses on high-level matters rather than managing the day-to-day operations of their team.
Tools
Discord
Everyone on the team is familiar with Discord since we used it heavily during lock down as a form of communication in previous years with classmates and each other. It is our primary channel of communication. We created a group chat called Guidify and use it for communicating about the project with each other or for 1 on 1 communications. This will help everyone be in the know of any issues or changes that are happening and it keeps a history of chats which can help fix an issue if it happens again.
- Communicate within group or 1:1
- Keep a history of chat logs
- Share files
- Multi-platform communication, mobile and PC
Google Calendar
Google calendar allows us to show each others schedules and informs everyone when someone is free or busy. Since we are a team of 5 with varying schedules this was critical to set up. This allowed us to at least schedule meetings in an easy manner, rather than texting each user individually if they are free at certain times.
- Schedule meetings
- Allow others to see personal schedule
- Reduce time spent on scheduling meetings
Google Meet
Google meet is the built in service from Google Calendar that allows users to create call meetings. At the beginning we tried using Discord as the main form of communication for calls however some people would have difficulty traversing Discord on the phone and therefore after a while we decided to start using Google Meet as our call meeting platform as it seemed to relieve some of the issues that people would have when joining a meeting.
- Host meetings created by Calendar
- Join Meetings on phone or pc
Research/Reference
Leadership Philosophy Examples to Help You Write Your Own Jamie Birt Career development February 25, 2020