Reflection – Visualization

Challenge and selection    As students, one of the problems we face the most is teamwork. Although skills are  necessary within projects, the most complicated thing is to find a way to communicate  your idea correctly to your colleagues. Several times I have been lucky enough to work  with colleagues who think very similar to me, which facilitates communication, but on  other occasions, I have had to use a certain tool to be able to make clear my idea and a  correct plan to work. In one of these cases, all my teammates had different ideas about  how we could develop the work, and reach an agreement we had to capture it in a  sketch.    As we already know, visualization is the tool that makes our idea tangible and concrete.  In our case, trying to describe our ideas only with words was not working, it was  because of this that we decided to implement the visualization, this way we all could  outline our ideas and make the best decisions for our project.    Application    The first step was brainstorming between all of us, we capture all the ideas on a  blackboard. We had done previous research, so it was easy to generate the key  concepts that we thought were important. After that, we analyzed and selected the best  options, which would become our main goal to achieve. We started the first sketch, all  of us were in the same line, this facilitated a lot the communication inside the team and  allowed us to improve our work.    The next step was to clean the sketch we had until we finished our prototype. We  decided to show it to some classmates to get some feedback, later we met to analyze  how we could solve the weaknesses that our partners found. To solve this, we made a  mind-map, where we stated the weaknesses and the possible solutions. Once we had a  concrete idea of our mistakes, we found the best solution.    Insight and approach    Students usually complain when we have to work in teams, it is much easier to work on  our own because we only have to deal with our ideas, even in those cases it is useful to  create a visual idea that represents what we plan to do. Working in teams is usually  complicated because describing the idea that we have in our head is very complicated,  you have to translate it so that your colleagues can understand it in the same way that  you do. Our team found it difficult at the beginning because we couldn’t communicate  with each other, we did not know how to express ourselves correctly, and visualization  was the perfect tool to solve our problem. The visualization allowed us all to share our  ideas and gather them into one, which we knew how to work in a synchronized way

because it was reflected the same for all of us. It was also easier to identify our  mistakes on a map and find the best solution.    We could have saved a lot of discussion time if we had decided to implement this tool  from the beginning, but I also think that other tools could be very useful, for example,  mind-mapping. Mind-mapping is useful when we have to capture information and ideas,  and, as I already told you, we used brainstorming in our project, so using mind-mapping  could have helped us to organize our ideas and make easier our process.     In conclusion, I think we learned a lot about these visual thinking tools, but there is so  much we have to apply in order to improve our skills.


Reflection – Visualization Challenge and selection As students , one of the problems we face the most is teamwork . Although skills are necessary within projects , the most complicated thing is to find a way to communicate your idea correctly to your colleagues . Several times I have been lucky enough to work with colleagues who think very similar to me , which facilitates communication , but on other occasions , I have had to use a certain tool to be able to make clear my idea and a correct plan to work . In one of these cases , all my teammates had different ideas about how we could develop the work , and reach an agreement we had to capture it in a sketch . As we already know , visualization is the tool that makes our idea tangible and concrete . In our case , trying to describe our ideas only with words was not working , it was because of this that we decided to implement the visualization , this way we all could outline our ideas and make the best decisions for our project . Application The first step was brainstorming between all of us , we capture all the ideas on a blackboard . We had done previous research , so it was easy to generate the key concepts that we thought were important . After that , we analyzed and selected the best options , which would become our main goal to achieve . We started the first sketch , all of us were in the same line , this facilitated a lot the communication inside the team and allowed us to improve our work . The next step was to clean the sketch we had until we finished our prototype . We decided to show it to some classmates to get some feedback , later we met to analyze how we could solve the weaknesses that our partners found . To solve this , we made a mind - map , where we stated the weaknesses and the possible solutions . Once we had a concrete idea of our mistakes , we found the best solution . Insight and approach Students usually complain when we have to work in teams , it is much easier to work on our own because we only have to deal with our ideas , even in those cases it is useful to create a visual idea that represents what we plan to do . Working in teams is usually complicated because describing the idea that we have in our head is very complicated , you have to translate it so that your colleagues can understand it in the same way that you do . Our team found it difficult at the beginning because we could n’t communicate with each other , we did not know how to express ourselves correctly , and visualization was the perfect tool to solve our problem . The visualization allowed us all to share our ideas and gather them into one , which we knew how to work in a synchronized way because it was reflected the same for all of us . It was also easier to identify our mistakes on a map and find the best solution . We could have saved a lot of discussion time if we had decided to implement this tool from the beginning , but I also think that other tools could be very useful , for example , mind - mapping . Mind - mapping is useful when we have to capture information and ideas , and , as I already told you , we used brainstorming in our project , so using mind - mapping could have helped us to organize our ideas and make easier our process . In conclusion , I think we learned a lot about these visual thinking tools , but there is so much we have to apply in order to improve our skills .