Presentation & Conclusions

On the deadline day the team was also required to do a presentation on the project as a whole. Due to the heavy workload of the week, the presentation had be done at the last minute. This was somewhat unfortunate as I feel that the quality suffered as a result. Beth was not present for the presentation due to to her ongoing illness, so again, the rest of the team member's were stretched in order to get the presentation ready in time.

I believe that the presentation was generally a success. Everybody contributed well and spoke about their specific work within the project, if we had time to fully rehearse I feel that we could been more professional as some parts didn't flow well and it gave a rushed impression.

My feelings about the project from start to finish are mixed. At the beginning I was confident that the project would go smoothly and the team would well together. However, when Beth became ill this "threw a spanner in the works". A lot of the team roles had to be reassigned and some people got confused as to what needed to be done. I felt that communication was a key factor that needed to be managed constantly.

Unfortunately, Beth failed to communicate  with the group on a number of occasions, which caused her to miss some key meetings and group decisions. I understand that she was ill and didn't expect her to be fully involved with all team actions, but it would of been very helpful if she responded to some emails/messages when she was able to. If this happened I felt that the overall team stress would of been lower and the quality of work would of been higher. If I was to project manage again and a similar situation arose, I would make more of an effort to contact the absent person in order to hopefully achieve a helpful dialogue, which would aid the team as a whole.

At the the end of the project I was happy with what we had achieved ,despite the multiple hurdles that we encountered along the way. There were some weaknesses, such as materials research and  drawing quality. However, I feel that the overarching concept is strong and it has been communicated in a imaginative and effective manner. Despite the many stresses this project has caused I am proud of my and team's achievements.  I feel that I have gained and developed skills that will aid me in a working environment such as; team leadership, communication, work/time management and crisis management.

The Final week

The last week before the deadline was a stressful time as there was a large amount of work to be done, especially on the project document. My main tasks included the aforementioned document and also producing 4 A3 presentation boards which detail the whole design process for the project.

I felt that the 4 A3 boards was a challenge, as it is quite hard to produce a piece of work that can represent the process without being too overcrowded. The boards took longer than expected to complete, as I was still waiting for drawings to be finished. This was somewhat of an inconvenience for me as I meant there was some delay caused on completing the project document.

I was happy with the results of my work on the 4 A3 boards, I believe I created pieces of work that balance the amount of written information and visuals effectively without being too overcrowded.  I made sure that the  design style related back to the team's corporate image as well as the design of the project document.

The project took the quite a large amount time to complete during the final week. Thankfully, everybody had managed to send me their contributions within an acceptable amount of time. However, I felt a lot of the design work needed proper annotation before it could be included in the document. This took up a large proportion of my time,  if all the team members were available, this work could of been fairly delegated which would of alleviated some stress from myself. But unfortunately, Beth has stated that she still too unwell to contribute to the final team effort.

Once I had finally completed the team document I was proud of what I had achieved. I believe that the document is interesting and well designed. I accept that their is a few weak points, in terms of written content but overall I am happy that the document represents the team's work efforts effectively and would be an acceptable entry to the RSA student competition.

New Year & Finalising Ideas

With the new year came new challenges for the group. Beth was still unavailable and as time was running out the Sketch Up had to be developed further. Danielle and Laura volunteered to take over the responsibility of the 3D design. This was very helpful of them which I appreciated, especially when they weren't fully comfortable about using the program.

I was tasked with creating the full presentation document that would detail all of the team's designs plus the time management and personal development of the group. Before Christmas, I created a mood board with the design features which I thought would look good for the document. The team seemed happy with design choices.

At this point in the process I had not done much of the document, as a lot of the work required content generated from team members. I'm afraid I became annoyed a few times as work which I expected to be done from my colleagues had not been done, which meant that my work would be delayed as a result. Danielle, however, was not one of the team members one didn't produce work when expected. She regularly produced work relating to the time management and organisation of the group, she even made updated pieces as new situation arose. I appreciated the work that she contributed and it allowed me to produce some content for the designed document.

Charlotte had produced some great concept sketches for the design part of the project, they help show the design method and the project concept overall. It was somewhat of a challenge to find other tasks for Charlotte to do as her skills are so specialised towards the illustrative genre. This problem was even more prevalent due to the absence of Beth within the team.

To summarise, at this point of the project timeline I was feeling some pressure with respect to the work load and what needed to be done for the approaching deadline. I felt that communication and appropriate delegation of work was now a priority.

Absence & Further Development

Unfortunately, Beth was taken ill just before Christmas. This meant that work pressures increased for the remaining members of the group. Luckily, Laura was fully back from her absence, however the pressures were still an issue.

I was tasked with further developing branding and signage for the design. Charlotte had created  series of animal characters that complement the key areas of the building; they feature a stag, a rabbit, a tortoise, a bear and a shark. I decided to incorporate these sketches into my sign designs, I assigned individual colours to the sketches in order to give some brand imagery to each area.

The progression of the Sketch Up become non-existant at this point due to Beth's absence, this was unfortunate as nobody else felt confident to take over the task. I feel that if the team had broader skill-set then this problem could of been averted. Unfortunately, we all have our unique untransferable skills which is good when everybody is present, but can be a major problem if a person is unavailable.

At this point I was starting to feel stressed as I felt some of the aspects work was starting to fall behind, luckily the team maintained positive communication which help alleviate some my stress.

Danielle had started to produce time management tools such as Gantt Charts. Although this was a requirement of the project brief, I found the charts a useful reference  on a day to day basis when I needed to delegate work and decide with work needed to be prioritised. I was surprised at myself, as I did not think that I would find such tools useful for my work style.

Sketch Up & Materials

The next step was to start creating the Sketch Up model using our research and ideas we had developed so far. Beth was chosen to be in charge of the Sketch Up model as she is the most adept with the program. She would oversee the design and add any suggestions we may have for the design.

We also looked at what materials we would use within the design. We looked at a company called Polyflor for the flooring as they provide durable commercial flooring but in wide variety of synthetic materials and colours.

Essential materials such as insulation was also considered, I felt that we could of looked more in depth, for when it comes to the materials as they are obviously an important part, but these we somewhat overlooked which caused to me to worry about the quality of the design.

A budget list was started to further investigate the prices and come up with  an estimated budget for the overall design. Myself and Laura were tasked with this.

Danielle was assigned with creating time management aids, such as a Gantt chart and a Work Structure. This should help us to stay on track and achieve the deadline, but I am unconvinced as personally I don't take much notice of time schedules, this is something I will become better with the project.

Charlotte was tasked with coming up with concept sketches that will help us the determine the visuals  for the areas within the design. I have complete faith in Charlottes abilities to come up with some amazing sketches as one her strongest talents is her illustration skills.

Logo and Design Ideas

Week three consisted of coming up with a brand image and and logo development. Charlotte came up with the idea of the name Plonk! as the name for the overall project. I felt this was a good name for the project as it reflects the transportable nature of the shipping containers to be used in the design.

We started looking at how many shipping containers would be needed and how they would be placed to create the maximum space for the structure. It was decided that 5 containers would be the ideal amount for the design, as it creates a decent amount of space without it being sprawling and too expensive.

We also discussed what areas would be within the structure. This caused some debate as most couldn't agree on what the design would actually be aimed at, this frustrated me somewhat, as I had clear vision of what it could look like. However, I had to remind myself that it is a team project and people opinions are as worthy as mine.

At this point, it was decided that I would become the Project manager. Laura was currently absent with an illness and I was nominated to become manager as my organisation and technical skills. would help everyone out. However, I was personally felt that organisation skills weren't up to scratch, as I have struggled with this in previous projects.

By the end of our project meeting we had decided that there would 5 key areas that would be ideal for a creative business:

The Snooze Pod - a place to relax and nap.

The Terrarium - a glazed room with plants which provides a pleasant break area for workers.

The Creative Terminal - the central hub were desk will be designed for creative employees.

The Inspiration Space - an informal meeting area to exchange ideas within a comfortable environment.

The Think Tank - a meeting space which encourages collaborative working and ideas exchange.